Updated Friday, 8/25
Updated Friday, 8/25
LAKE QUINSIGAMOND SWIMMING ADVISORY HAS BEEN LIFTED
Board of Health is stating the no swimming advisory HAS BEEN LIFTED as of 2:30 PM 08/25/17.
The advisory on recreational boating had been lifted as of 3:30 PM on 8/24/17.
UPDATED Thursday, 8/24
“Residents in the vicinity of Lake Quinsigamond are reminded that the swimming advisory as issued Tuesday is still in effect pending further test results tomorrow afternoon (8/25/17). The City of Worcester experienced a sanitary breach at one of their sewage pumping stations. This breach has caused the advisory, which is in effect until further notice. Please note that the ban on recreational activities, including boating, has been lifted as of 3:30 pm, based on today’s results.
Please monitor our website for more detailed information as the situation unfolds. We also recommend monitoring the Worcester website, or contacting the City of Worcester directly at 508-799-1175, Monday through Friday between 8:00 am and 4:30 pm.”
UPDATED 6am – Wednesday 8/23
WORCESTER – Hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw sewage flowed into Lake Quinsigamond Tuesday morning after a computer glitch shut down pumps in a city sewer pumping station on Lake Avenue.
Philip D. Guerin, director of water and sewer operations for the city of Worcester, said the untreated sewage flowed out of the station near Belmont Street sometime between 7 and 7:30 a.m.
A no-swimming order was issued for Lake Quinsigamond after the incident.
A couple of people at the state park said they were upset that they paid the entrance fee to the park at the gate but were not told the lake was closed to swimming.
The city manager’s office issued a news release Tuesday morning about the problem, saying sewage overflowed for about an hour and a quarter.
The incident prompted officials to close the lake to swimming, boating and other recreational activities because the bacteria released can cause illness.
The city will sample and test the water to be sure it meets “recreational water quality standards” before allowing activities to resume.
“What we encountered was a glitch in the computer operating system that was telling the system that it had very little flow, so it told the pumps there was very little flow when in fact the flows were at their normal level early in the morning,” Mr. Guerin said. The highest sewage flows are in the morning.
The computer program told the station to shut the pumps off, but the sewage flow continued.
“It came out of the manhole and flowed into the parking lot and then flowed across the parking lot and then over the wall into the lake,” Mr. Guerin said.
He said the Lake Avenue station is the largest and most modern pumping station in the city. It is capable of pumping 20 million gallons a day.
The station was redesigned and rebuilt and went into operation in 2015.
“We rebuilt it to make it more reliable and capable of pumping so it would not overflow in wet weather,” he said.
He added, “What we have now is probably the most high-tech, sophisticated facility we own and manage. It has lots of instrumentation, all run by computer, and makes adjustments depending on what is happening.”
The amount of sewage that got into the lake has not been determined.
“We don’t have that number yet. We have to go through the data to see what the flow rates were at the time,” he said.
The system was brought under control around 8:45 a.m.
Any bacteria that made its way into the lake will be dealt with naturally, Mr. Guerin said.
“We will wait for nature to take its course. Bacteria in waste water dies off. Once it is out in the environment, between sunlight and processes in the lake, that is what kills it off. Obviously it takes longer in warmer weather than if it happened in the winter. Years ago we would dump chlorine in the water, but that is more harmful,” he said.
UPDATED 4pm – Tuesday 8/22
WORCESTER – A no-swimming order has been issued for Lake Quinsigamond after sewage was released from a pumping station into the lake Tuesday morning.
A problem at a pumping station caused the sewage to overflow for more than an hour, according to a news release from the city manager’s office.
The incident prompted officials to close the lake to swimming, boating and other recreational activities because the bacteria released can cause illness.
The city will sample and test the water to be sure it meets “recreational water quality standards” before allowing recreational activities to resume.
UPDATED 9am – Tuesday 8/22
Sewer overflow occurred between 7:00 or 7:30 AM until 8:45 AM today due to an “equipment failure”. Worcester Inspectional Services will sample the bathing beaches daily until swimming standards are attained. At this time, we recommend the lake is closed to swimming, boating and other recreational activities
Posted at 11:59 AM
Updated Aug 22, 2017 at 12:24 PM
WORCESTER — A no-swimming order has been issued for Lake Quinsigamond after sewage was released from a pumping station into the lake this morning.
A problem at a pumping station caused the sewage to overflow for more than an hour, according to a news release from the city manager’s office.
The incident prompted officials to close the lake to swimming, boating and other recreational activities because the bacteria released can cause illness.
The city will sample and test the water to be sure it meets “recreational water quality standards” before allowing recreational activities to resume.
Source:
http://www.telegram.com/news/20170822/computer-glitch-blamed-for-sewage-in-lake-quinsigamond
http://www.telegram.com/news/20170822/no-swimming-at-quinsigamond-after-worcester-spills-sewage
General Findings: This month ( August 2017), in addition to the Anabaena and Microcystis that we have seen over the beginning portion of the summer, we discovered another genus of cyanobacteria in Lake Quinsigamond. This one is called Woronichinia, which can form clusters like Microcystis. It is known to shoot out the individual cells, making the inside look hallow under the microscope at times.
