Repairs were completed overnight on one fractured sewer line and service for West Salem is expected to be restored sometime Saturday morning, according to Trevor Smith, Salem city spokesman.
“We are still asking West Salem residents to hold off on using as much water as possible as we bring the line back into service,” Smith said in an email on Saturday, Dec. 28.
One 24-inch pipeline that carries wastewater from West Salem to the city’s Willow Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant in Keizer broke on Thursday, Dec. 26. A second pipeline used as a backup then failed on Friday, Dec. 27, prompting the city to urge West Salem residents to avoid disposing of wastewater.
People were asked not to flush toilets, launder clothes or wash dishes.
With the pipes out of service, city officials have been diverting untreated wastewater out of the system and onto fields east of Northwest Wallace Road, including areas around Glen Creek, River Bend Slough and Wallace Marine Park.
City crews worked on the smaller pipeline through the night.
“The repair involved excavating, locating, removing, and replacing a 400-foot section of corroded pipe,” Smith said.
He said repair work on the larger pipeline would be undertaken Saturday.
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City plans to fix West Salem sewer main early Saturday as raw sewage spills into Willamette River
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Les Zaitz is editor and CEO of Salem Reporter. He co-founded the news organization in 2018. He has been a journalist in Oregon for nearly 50 years in both daily and community newspapers and digital news services. He is nationally recognized for his commitment to local journalism. He also is editor and publisher of the Malheur Enterprise in Vale, Oregon.
