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City sewer project requires homeowners’ cooperation

Pittston City Council announced in a press release it will be performing a sanitary sewer improvement project in certain areas of the city in the very near future. This project is needed to prevent sanitary sewage and storm water drainage problems that are occurring in certain areas of the city.

This project will separate the sanitary sewage from the storm water drainage system that flows to the Susquehanna River, thereby improving the water quality of the river.

As part of this project, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has required that all storm water drains located on private residential properties be disconnected from the sanitary sewer. The city has an ordinance requiring the disconnection of storm water drains from the house sanitary sewer laterals (File of Council No 1 of 2005). To ensure compliance with these requirements, city personnel will be visiting each of the properties to be connected to the new sanitary sewer and discussing this with the property owners. Storm water drains from a building that are prohibited to connect to the sanitary sewer can consist of roof leader pipes, sump pumps, basement floor drains, yard or driveway drains and any non-sanitary sewer pipes.

If you are aware of these items connected to your sanitary sewer lateral, please make arrangements to have these lines disconnected immediately. The city anticipates construction to start on these systems soon, and these storm water lines must be disconnected before a property’s sanitary sewer lateral is connected to the new sanitary sewer main.