Town of Lewiston: Water, water, everywhere.
WWTP administrator discusses recent sewer back-ups Editor-in-Chief Following last week’s deluge of rains, there was water, water everywhere – much of it in residents’ basements – Lewiston wastewater treatment plant administrator Jeff Ritter told Supervisor Steve Broderick and the Lewiston Town Board meeting on Monday.
He told board members that, normally by this time of the year, Lewiston typically averages 6.6 inches of rain.
"It’s an all-time record for the treatment plant for the first five months of the year," Ritter said.
"The treatment plant can only pump the water as fast as it can get there," he continued.
"And there are several irate homeowners who blame the town when there is flooding."
Ritter said adding a half-dozen or more illegal sump pump hook-ups to the sanitary sewer "would definitely help surcharge the system."
They will essentially drain their lawn to the town’s sanitary sewer system, he said.
He told the board his department "responded to every call with a sewer backup."
The hearing was left open, with Town Board action expected at the May 22 session.

However, upon hearing the municipality had a fund balance in the neighborhood of $1.4 million (around 40 percent of the proposed 2017-18 budget), trustees asked Walker on April 3 to prepare a budget with no tax increase.
At $7.46, the extra $14,000 would’ve put the total amount to be raised by tax levy at $1,085,625.
Each year, one of the village’s biggest budget expenses is the Department of Public Works.
"We had forecasted a fairly significant appropriated fund balance last year (more than $165,000), and we ended up on the plus side," Walker said.
Deputy Mayor Bruce Sutherland said, "We’ve had a couple of mild winters, and that’s afforded us the opportunity to increase our fund balance.
… And be able to keep the taxes where they are."
Additionally, the property’s middle building has a sign stating asbestos-containing materials will be removed from April 17 until May 31.
And then there’s a lot of work to do to start grading out the area and removing some of the piles of materials that have been dumped on the site over the years.
"So, we want to get a good, clear look at what does the ground look like, before we start going through and doing sampling in the areas that they’ve already identified as needing to be remediated.
Emergency Management and Response Plan At the Village Board’s April 3 meeting, Sutherland provided an update on the village’s emergency management plan.