NORTH ARLINGTON –
The borough has completed a jet cleaning of the Geraldine Road sanitary sewer line and a camera inspection of the line, undertaken to assess the condition of the pipes, officials said. Borough Engineer Tom Lemanowicz said he’s waiting for a report on the camera inspection, which was conducted by the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission before making any recommendations to stop sewer backups into residents’ basements.
“Once the engineer has time to review the report in depth, and present some recommendations for further action to the council, then we will have a meeting with residents to discuss this ongoing problem with sewer backups,” said Borough Council President Al Granell.
Meanwhile, a volunteer committee appointed by Mayor Peter Massa will be conducting a door-to-door survey of homes in the impacted area to review the frequency and extent of the backups and the frequency of wet basements unrelated to sewage backups.
Lewanowicz has speculated that the intrusion of water into basements could be the result of any number of things including water infiltration through cracks in the sewer pipes, leaky manhole covers, water from roof drains and basement sump pumps or by the drainage system installed by the developer of the residential area decades ago.
“Once we have some solid information to share with the residents, we will call for a special meeting of the sewer committee and the people living in the area to discuss an action plan and answer people’s questions,” Massa said.
Massa said he expects that meeting to be scheduled sometime in mid-September.
