A second ruptured sewer main should be fixed Saturday evening, allowing the city of Salem to resume pumping sewage from West Salem on Sunday morning, city spokesman Trevor Smith said.
More than 30 people have been working round-the-clock on site to repair two pipes that carry wastewater from West Salem to the city’s Willow Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant in Keizer.
The first, a 24-inch main, failed Thursday, Dec. 26. That cause more strain on the second line, which failed Friday, Dec. 27.
City crews fixed the 18-inch pipe in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The second failure prompted a city request for West Salem residents to limit water usage to avoid discharging more raw sewage into creeks and the Willamette River.
Smith said city officials expect to lift that request on Sunday morning and resume normal operation of the sewer system.
Areas of West Salem will continue to have higher levels of bacteria due to the raw sewage that’s been released from manholes to relieve pressure on the system. The lines normally process about 8 million gallons of sewage per day.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
