Sewage spills in Hillsborough yet again

Hillsborough, October 13 In an incident that has happened for the second time within a span of 30 days, frustrating the residents beyond words, the Hillsborough county faces yet another sewage spill, from a break in the pipeline, this time in the Town ‘n’ County area.

With over 300,000 gallons of sewage having spilled from the break, contaminating the nearby Sweetwater creek as well, the repercussions have been drastic and quite worrisome.

Not only have the chances of infection, disease and contamination of drinking water increased from the break, the natural ecosystem of the creek too has been disrupted, resulting in the death of fish in that water, needless to mention the threats to wildlife in the area, as feared by the locals.

Not only are the residents bearing with the awful smell that has engulfed the area, they also have to bear the callous attitude of the authorities, who despite similar breaks in the past have not made much efforts to repair and maintain the 100 year old pipeline.

While environmental agencies would be taking samples to measure the extent of damage done by the break, residents have been advised not to use the water from the creek or for that matter go near it until the problem is dealt with.

Despite reassurances from the concerned agencies that the 20 inch break has been mended and also that no contamination of drinking water is feared, the threats of bacterial infections can not be ruled out.

Quite interestingly, Hillsborough County was one of the three areas, which were penalised heavily this year beginning, by The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board for allowing the discharge of raw sewage into the streets and water bodies, via breaks and spills in the pipelines.

Hillsborough owed the board more than $750,000 for over 71 spills, amounting to a total of 3 million gallons of spilt sewage.

Despite the fact that the administration realises that the pipelines are very old and narrow, often weakened at places by tree roots, not much has been done to alleviate the condition which worsens during the rainy season, often pushing sewage out from the man holes into the streets.

Hillsborough which has its sewage flow divided between the Burgingame and San Mateo wastewater plants, has a number of lawsuits against it, mainly due to the deteriorating condition of waterbeds in the area.

While the authorities blame the century old pipeline system and the lack of funds for its upkeep; it is the locals and the surrounding ecosystem that has to bear the burden of this kind of negligence every time, over and over again. It would not be a surprise if such things happened again, unless something is done at the earliest to stop them.