I Smell a Rat: Continued

by Smoking Gun? Test Plug Blocks Sewer Line, Causes Backup, Headaches

By Dennis Evanosky

In last month's Shenanigans article, Andrew Vincent outlined Andes Construction's shoddy work at the ongoing sewer replacement project in the Laurel District, for which Oakland residents will be paying top dollar for years to come.

"Take a look at your EBMUD bill," Vincent said. "Right now we're all paying $23.78 for 'City of Oakland Sewer Service.' This amount will increase over the next five years until the city is taking $40.08 from each household."

Although this amount appears on the EBMUD bill, the money goes to the City of Oakland, whose responsibility it is to maintain the sewer facilities.

"All I'm asking for is my money's worth," Vincent said. "So I will continue to monitor what Andes Construction and the City of Oakland are and are not doing on this job."

In return for our money, the city promises a clean and efficient sewer system. This promise is flowing in the wrong direction.

"For the last two weeks I've been monitoring raw sewage flowing into the Curran Branch of Peralta Creek," Vincent said.

He took me to Coolidge Avenue and pointed to raw sewage coursing down the storm drain. This sewage flows downstream under Bret Harte Middle School's playground and into Peralta Creek, Vincent explained. Children could be exposed to raw sewage.

This was not all Vincent was monitoring. He documented a three-foot raw sewage backup in a 19-foot-deep manhole on Alida Street. He notified the City's sewer repair department on October 6 and was told someone would be out immediately. He also told several neighbors about the backup.

"No one showed up to alleviate the problem," Vincent said. "Over the next several days I documented backups ranging from three to six feet."

On October 16, Vincent got a phone call. Homeowners on Alida Street returned home to find two feet of raw sewage in their basement. They had called the City's sewer repair number. Since it was after 5 p.m., the call was automatically forwarded to the fire department.

An irate fire department dispatcher, obviously unaware of her department's own policies, told the homeowners they did not have an emergency. They should hang up and call the sewer repair number. They explained to the dispatcher that they had dialed the city's sewer repair number and had gotten her on the line. She said someone would be out. So they waited. While they waited, the level of raw sewage continued to rise in the homeowners' basement.

Vincent called me, and I drove to the site with my camera. I arrived just in time to see Vincent checking the 19-foot-deep manhole on the street just in front of the home. We saw that the level of raw sewage had risen to 16 feet. "Something's blocking the flow here, and this sewage could rise out of the manhole and into the street," Vincent said.

After a two-hour wait, a city crew arrived. They were professionals, embarrassed that the situation had gotten so bad. They explained that conditions had stabilized, that they could do nothing more in the dark. "I promise that a crew will be here by 10 a.m. tomorrow to fix the problem," the crew chief said. He was true to his word.

Vincent went to the site early the next morning to find the Andes Construction supervisor there with a police escort. "When I asked the officer who had called him, he answered, 'Nobody,'" Vincent said. "The supervisor then accused the neighbors of sabotaging the job."

What the city crew found later that morning, however, solidly contradicts the supervisor's accusations. I arrived on the site just in time to witness the crew remove its snake from the sewer main. A container attached to a hose lay tangled in the snake.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A test plug," one of the crew explained. "You put that container into a pipe and fill it with air to block the flow of sewage so you can work on the pipe." He pointed to the connector on the hose attached to the plug. It reminded me of one on a car tire.

It appears Andes Construction's own equipment got caught in the sewer pipe and caused the raw sewage backup.

As if to ice the cake, once the manhole emptied, the crew discovered that someone had left a shovel at the bottom of the manhole.

Do the test plug and the shovel belong to Andes Construction? Can the supervisor's accusations of sabotage be taken seriously? Or is it time we ask the city to investigate if Oaklanders are really getting their money's worth.

Stay tuned.