Rags and underwear back up city's sewer system

COHOES -- Department of Public Works crews say three of their sewage pump motors at a substation on Edsel Drive burned out after underwear and rags got tangled in them.

Mayor John McDonald says someone must have flushed them down their toilet, causing the motors to burn out, spilling nearly 9,000 gallons of raw sewage into the Saltkill, and ultimately the Hudson River.

"There were plenty of rags that were in the system," says Mayor McDonald. "You wouldn't think you have to educate the public about dumping rags down their toilet. Unfortunately, some individual or individuals has wreaked havoc on the community with this situation"

Ken Brockway, resident of Cohoes, has a front seat view to the pump system and the smell. “My pool is right there, a hundred feet away," he said when CBS 6 caught up with him. "It smelled bad. It was just horrible. Smelled like a septic tank -- and being a plumber, I know that smell."

Neighbors claim the problem has been ongoing for about three to four years, but the Mayor strongly disagrees. “It’s not due to any part of negligence," he said. "It’s due to the fact that some individual or individuals unknown at this time threw a bunch of rags into the system and bound the motors up and burned them out.”

The Mayor mentioned that the specific station was "upgraded two years ago with two brand new motors and a third fail-safe motor for incidents such as this."

"Unfortunately," he said, "due to the magnitude of the rags found, the other motors were unable to take the place of the first."

The city of Cohoes is spending $10,000 on new parts for the repair of the system, which will be taken from the operating budget in the sewer fund.

“We’re not happy about this," the Mayor said. "This is not something we condone. It’s a very serious matter and we’re trying to resolve this matter as quickly as possible."

Around 4:00 p.m., crews successfully replaced the motors and all was working again.

"The Hudson River is about one mile away so we don't think a lot of sewage made it all the way there, so we believe there was very little if any impact to wildlife," says McDonald.

The motors were replaced with the same 2.9-horsepower capacity which means this could happen again. 

Mayor McDonald says while that may be true the motors are still 40 percent more powerful than anything they had in there before when they were replaced two years ago.