Hamilton city crews work to clear drains in the flooded areas of Main Street on the west side of Hamilton after heavy rain and flash flooding, Thursday, June 2.
Greg Lynch
By Mike Rutledge
Staff Writer
HAMILTON, OHIO —
More than one solution likely will be needed to address issues that led to the June 2 flooding in Hamilton, according to officials who spoke during Wednesday night’s city council meeting.
Several angry property owners whose buildings have been swamped multiple times by raw sewage, attended the meeting and expressed frustration the flooding hadn’t been addressed since a heavy storm in 2009 that cost many of them thousands of dollars.
There’s more bad news: It may cost property owners money in cases where their storm gutters are connected to the city’s sanitary-sewer system — the one that receives waste from sinks and toilets — rather than emptying into their lawns or connecting to the storm sewer system, which is intended to carry rain and melted snow.
Kevin Maynard, the city’s director of public utilities, told council the city’s sanitary and storm systems are completely separate from each other, and officials know of no place where the two systems are linked. But during storms, lots of rain makes its way into the sanitary sewers in two ways, he said: Most of it enters from pipes that carry rain runoff from roofs or sump pumps directly into the sanitary sewers, and other water enters through leaks into sewer pipes. That water overwhelms the system, causing backups into basements.
“There shouldn’t be any storm water or groundwater that enters that system,” Maynard said. “However, our system experiences significant inflow and infiltration during wet-weather events.”
He noted the city’s best estimate is that 4½ inches of rain fell in 20 to 30 minutes.
City Manager Joshua Smith recommended the city transfer $250,000 from sewer-related accounts to help residents with the costs of disconnecting sump pumps and gutters from the sanitary-sewer system and instead having them drain into lawns, where they can be absorbed into the soil.
“It’s going to take the cooperation of the residents,” Smith said. “The first thing we would like to do is see if we do have some connections. We’re not blaming anyone for improper connections: It could be a legacy issue — someone could have bought a house five owners later (than the improper connections were made). We’re not casting blame on anyone, but we just need to identify those, because first and foremost we think that will eliminate a lot of the issues, in particular in the Highland Park, Rossville, Main Street area.
“That being said, I live in Rossville,” Smith added. “I saw the impact on Main Street. Even though our engineers tell me that the storm sewer on Main Street is designed to industry standards, that’s not good enough. We must be much more diligent with the cleaning of those storm sewers — leaves, garbage.”
Smith said he and Public Works Director Rich Engle will walk several blocks of Main Street to talk with property owners in coming days about problems they have faced. He also plans to hire within two weeks an independent engineering firm to examine the storm sewers along Main Street, where rain regularly pools even during minor storms.
One resident expressing his displeasure was Jack Head of Carmen Avenue, who told council: “Three times now, I’ve got raw sewage coming up from the sewer, and I am sick of it.”
“This sewage thing should not have ever been allowed to go this far,” Head said, telling officials: “Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.”
After flooding in 2009, a claims adjuster for the city’s insurer denied Head’s claim for assistance, calling that storm an “act of nature.” After the June 2 storm, an insurance rep for the city verbally called it an “act of God,” he said.
Given the city’s failure to address the problem after the 2009 flooding, Head told this news outlet after he left the meeting that the latest flooding “was an act of disinterest and incompetence” on the city’s part.