Portable toilets might be used for Brewers' opening day
(Published Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:01:00 AM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Associated Press
MILWAUKEE - Portable toilets or waste-pumping trucks could be utilized at Miller Park for the Milwaukee Brewers' opening day game April 2 if sanitary sewer line problems are not corrected before then, officials say.
"We're feeling confident that we'll have it fixed by opening day," Mike Duckett, the Miller Park stadium district's executive director said Wednesday after further tests confirmed at least one pipe coming from private suite bathrooms was hooked improperly to a storm sewer draining to the Menomonee River.
But Benjamin Benninghoff, a state Department of Natural Resources storm water specialist, said that, if that does not turn out to be the case, the DNR would impose a contingency plan "to ensure there aren't any more discharges to storm sewers."
Among the options that could be used are the use of portable toilets by fans in the affected areas or waste pumping trucks that would intercept the flow before it gets to the storm sewer, he said.
Ducket said correcting the plumbing problems likely would cost about $10,000 if there is only one sanitary pipe misconnected to a storm sewer.
Tests done Wednesday showed that the misconnection that has been confirmed is somewhere between third level suites in the northeast corner of the stadium and a storm sewer beneath an access road immediately east of U.S. 41, Duckett said.
"The trick will be in finding where the wrong connection was made," he said.
Duckett said he believed additional tests would not uncover widespread problems.
The investigation of possible sewer misconnections at Miller Park was initiated in response to tests last year of water samples from a storm sewer discharge pipe on the Menomonee River east of the stadium. Officials said each of 12 samples tested positive for the genetic marker for a human fecal bacteria, indicating that sanitary sewers were discharging to the storm sewer.
