A backed-up sewage lift station created a messy situation for
city workers Friday.
Hollister – A backed-up sewage lift station created a messy situation for city workers Friday.
Community Services Director Clay Lee said a malfunctioning control panel caused sewage from the Hollister Industrial Park to back up near the Wiebe Motel, eventually coming to the surface and pooling near a field of peppers on San Felipe Road.
“It was completely segregated,” Lee said. “Nothing got into the crops.”
City workers were called into action at 6:30am and were on the scene 15 or 20 minutes later, Lee said. Nak Hyun, owner of the Wiebe Motel, emphasized that the spill had been completely sanitized and covered with sand.
“Everything’s OK,” Hyun said. “They did it very quickly.”
Sewer service at the motel wasn’t affected at all, he added. As far as he knew, no one lost sewer service.
Most of the pipes transporting sewage to Hollister’s treatment plant are gravity powered, Lee said, but there are also four lift stations in the city where sewage needs to be pumped. This is the first time a lift station has malfunctioned since Lee took charge of public works three years ago.
“There may have been some things prior to that,” he said.
Lee said he doesn’t know when city staff will finish repairing the control panel. Until it’s fixed, workers will monitor the area and respond to new problems, he said.
