Sewer line installation remains a mystery

Officials are not sure why the Bunker Hill Court line was built the way it was

The county will make temporary repairs before permanent plan is approved.

The pipe was installed 25 feet in the ground, which is too deep, said Joe Barrington, county’s bureau chief of utilities at an Oct. 9 mayor and Town Council meeting in Sykesville.

County staff cannot find inspection records of the pipeline, said J. Michael Evans, Carroll County public works director.

The pipe was installed when the Carroll County Sanitary Commission oversaw sewage utilities, he said, adding the commission reorganized in 1979 to a county agency and record transfers could have been sloppy.

“They might not have kept the records they kept at the time,“ he said. “I’m not sure if any records are surviving.“

Money for the repairs would come from the enterprise fund, to which all sewer customers contribute money. Costs to repair the drain are unclear at this point.

Bob Bond, Sykesville’s town engineer, said several factors could have contributed to the leak.

“It wasn’t built incorrectly based on approved plans by the consultant,“ Bond said, who works for Wilson T. Ballard Co. in Owings Mills. The company is an inspector for Carroll County.

Bond’s best guess is that an exception was made to the plan to have the clay pipe installed at a low depth. “You avoid [exceptions] unless you have a critical design situation,“ he said.

And that might have been the case, Evans said.

Under the rules during the 1970s, the commission would have had to provide sewer service to the basement of the house and the pipes have to be deeper than the basement, he said.

Deep lines are not unusual in those days, Evans said, who worked with Anne Arundel County at the time.

“It’s not uncommon to see a deep line or deny basement service to people,“ he said about practices at the time.

Since then, technology has improved with better pumps pushing sewage up lines in the house and out into the main line.

If workers would face a situation similar to Bunker Hill Court today, they could also put more manholes closer together to solve potential problems, he added.

The sewage is to flow with gravity, Bond said, but it’s fighting the grade of the street. The cul-de-sac drops 12 feet from elevation from the intersection to the end.

Sykesville Public Works Director Ron Esworthy said integrity might have been compromised during the installation or inspection of the pipe.

“Somebody either knew somebody or something in the county to get this passed, and now we’re suffering for it,“ he said at the council meeting.

Mayor Jonathan Herman, who owns a construction company, said fault could go either way. “Some inspectors follow the rules, some don’t,“ he said. “Some builders follow the rules and some don’t.“

Initial plans were to run the lines behind the home and interconnect to the rear of the homes, Esworthy said.

“It’s a much better way because you have an eight-foot-drop there to what six feet down toward the back, so you have a normal fall,“ he said.

But placing the blame is not what matters to Esworthy as much – it’s that the repairs are done right.

“They will fix it the way it’s supposed to be fixed,“ he said about Highland Turf Inc., a contractor that is working for the county to repair the line.