Just a follow-up with a couple questions to get some more input on the issue?

I e-mailed Steve Fulop about the sewer charging/back-up issue and got a very nice reply (Tom Gibbons was cc-ed). Steve in looking at the issue and mentioned that from the information he was getting, the backups were due to either:
a) Sewer needs cleaning
b) Dated system that can?t handle capacity.

Granted ? I?m no engineer, but I still see this as a capacity/dated system issue. If the system is so delicate that it gets clogged frequently, isn?t that a symptom of a dated capacity/design issue?...

We recently installed a 6? check valve and had our building main scoped/snaked with a video camera feed out to the street main. We wanted to ensure that our building main was fine and had no collapsed portions (it was). The camera had a ?fish-eye? lens, so I?m sure the image was distorted, but when it got the street main, it really appeared that the street main was rectangular in shape and made out of brick. The contractor we hired told us that if our building was approx 150-years old, the sewer was probably put in a couple years before the building.

I?m hoping the check valve does the trick, but I?m concerned that although I may have blocked sewage from backing up my building main, the water in a ?charge? situation still has to go ?somewhere.? Does a check-valve on Building A make it worse for those surrounding buildings that aren?t check-valved?... Say all the buildings on the block were check-valved ? would a sewer back-up make the street flooding worse and possibly raise the ground water levels to where buildings would get foundation leaks?...

A couple other questions for discussion ?
? Has anyone actually viewed the old sewer main at the street? What is its size, shape, etc.?
? If, indeed, the main is rectangular in shape ? is that shape more prone to clogging than a round sewer?

Thoughts?...

Thanks,
Scott (the sewer obsessed)

It was a good idea to call the State DEP office. It puts me in the curious position now of hoping the basement floods so I can document. Although this last solution, the floodgate valve, does seem to be working. So maybe I won't have the opportunity for a little while. I will write letters to the people on that list though. -- Thanks for your work on this Tom. It is a critical issue.

Ben,

The New Jersey DEP called me today regarding the flooding in my basement. They will be the best avenue to getting sewer / flooding problems addressed in Jersey City.

But before you contact them you need to have documentation. The DEP told me they need residents to provide photos of the flooding, and dates and times of when flooding occurred. You can also include information like weather conditions at the time of the flooding incident. Also record / document your calls and letters to the MUA regarding the problems. And the MUAs responses.

DEP is aware that this is a problem in Jersey City but needs residents to provide this type of information in order for them to get the MUA to begin repairing and upgrading the downtown sewer system.

Good luck!

I would add the followinging:

The Jersey City Municipal Utilities Authority (JCMUA) is required to ensure that all wastewater and storm water flow to the treatment plant and that fresh water reaches your home. Any that does not is their responsibility.

The sewers throughout downtown Jersey City are over 100-years old and have been allowed to disintegrate over many years of neglect. In the past Jersey City has only made repairs in response to regulatory directives and to promote development.

Downtown is serviced by a Combined Sewer system, which means that raw sewage and storm water are combined in the same sewer pipe. When it rains the collapsed or broken, undersized pipes backup (surcharge) and a combination of storm water and sewage floods into your basement.

Don't let the MUA lie to you. The flooding in your basement is not directly due to the following:

? ?Regional Groundwater Conditions;
? ?Below Sea Level?
? ?High Tides?
? ?Underground Rivers?

Ask for the JCMUA to fulfill their responsibility to repair and maintain the sewer system in a manner that prevents the discharge of sewage into your homes. Ask your elected officials to prepare a capital budget and a master plan that includes the millions of dollars it will cost to repair this 100-year old sewer system. Ask the DEP to mandate that the JCMUA repair our 100-year old sewer system.

Any water entering your home is a potential health hazard. In this case it is combined with raw sewage. Water damage can cause both fungal and bacterial contamination and may damage structural components in buildings. Too much exposure may cause or worsen conditions such as asthma, hay fever or other allergens.

Common symptoms of over-exposure are cough, congestion, runny nose, eye irritation and aggravation of asthma. Depending on the amount of exposure and a persons' vulnerability, more serious health effects such as fever, breathing problems, nausea and skin rashes can occur.

It is the JCMUA?s obligation to maintain the sewer system in a manner that protects human health and the environment. They are responsible for ensuring that raw sewage flows to the treatment plant and NOT back into your homes.

In New Jersey, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is responsible for enforcing these regulations. EPA has issued stiff penalties to municipalities that fail to ensure the sewage flows to treatment plant and not into the environment:

City of Honolulu, HI (1994) ? The EPA fined the City $1.2 million for failing to maintain its sewer system. EPA also required improvements to the sewer at a cost of $30 million.

Metro Dade County, FL (1995) ? The EPA fined the county $2 million for failing to maintain the sewer system, which resulted in the overflow of raw sewage into homes, streets and businesses. EPA further required improvements to the sewer at a cost of $800 million.

Year-after-year the JCMUA has repeatedly stated that they have no money to repair even the most notable of sewer problems. Yet year-after-year there is no Master Plan and no attempt to even begin addressing or funding these issues. Send the message to your elected officials and the DEP that sewage flowing into you home whenever it rains in unaccetable and a violation of the Clean Water Act.

A master plan, or any plan for that matter, is the first step. In the letters that I write and the phone calls that I make, that's one of the points I'll be making. Here are some names and addresses of people to write to, in case you don't have them already.


Jersey City Municipal Utilities Authority
555 Routhe 440, Jersey City, NJ 07305
(201) 432-1150
Thoams P, Kane Executive Director
Joseph Beckmeyer, Chief Engineer
Teresa Harrington, Supervisor of Customer Service

The City of Jersey City
280 Grove Street
Jersey City, NJ 07302
Mayer Healy (201) 547-4900

The New Jersey DEP
Mr. James Hamilton, Administrator
Water Compliance and Enforcement
401 East State Street, 4th Floor, Box 422
Trenton NJ 08625-0422

The New Jersey DEP
Mr. Joe Mikulka, Manager
Northern Region, Compliance Enforcement
7 Ridgedale Avenue, Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
(973) 656-4099

Very informative post! French drains are not suitable for most of downtown. It is something a plumber from the suburbs would recommend.

In the last 10 years, our basement has had serious flooding 3 times or so. When it happens, the drain spouts water like a geiser. A french drain wouldn't be able to keep up.

Quote:

The problem with this thread is that people are talking past each other about at least 3 distinctly different flooding situations.

1- runoff from yard or driveway that fails to drain.

2- overcharged sewer backing up into toilets, drains or bath past no or failing check valve.

3- overcharging sewer leaks into fill through cracks and offsets and penetrates the foundation (my problem)

#'s 1 & 2 have technical solutions on the property that have not been tried or need to be repaired, but 3 cuts to the core of whats wrong with JC's infrastructure. It is the most common from my conversations, but most people have been told by the MUA that it's groundwater, a lie.

The sewers simply can't move the water they collect, and they leak because 100 year old brick and clay mains have never been maintained.

When we get a heavy rain, I can track the progress of the flood. I have a tall cleanout on my sewer I can open and see how high the sewer has flooded. But my check valve works fine. So what happens is it takes a certain amount of time for the water to travel through the street fill from the leaky main in the street to my foundation. Then every opening in the foundation starts to spout like a fountain.

If I were to french drain the basement, there's no way any pumps could keep up with the thousands of gallons that would come pouring in. for the period of the flood my basement is a leaky submarine, not to be solved by making more holes!

As I said in an earlier thread, the sewer problems of this city are solvable, New Orleans is 15' below sea level and doesn't flood. The problem, as Tom Gibbons has pointed out, is that the city simply will not admit there IS a problem, never mind try to plan out a solution. (there is NO master plan for modernizing the sewers)

What we need to do is create a political constituency that will not let them get of the hook with lies about groundwater and tides. If sewer modernization became an election issue we would see action, which is exactly why they lie to us. As anyone who followed the last election knows, all it takes is a few hundred votes to throw a councilman out of office. We need to let them know this is important to us, and they better care or feel our wrath.

Tom has pointed out that other cities have been fined for not maintaining their sewer infrastructure. We need to create that kind of pressure. It's simply unacceptable for million dollar properties to have shit in their basements every time it rains hards.

Good luck, Scott. Stop by the house if you ever want to talk about it. It shouldn't cost that much money, so don't let them charge you a fortune.

In my experience, regular check valves don't work. Or, more accurately, they do work for a while, but eventually they stop working; the valve gets clogged and won't close.

I had one for a few years. I installed a somewhat elaborate system to keep it from getting clogged, and it still was not one-hundred percent effective. It did work sometimes. But at least once or twice a summer we'd get a storm that would flood the place.

The valve we use now, this floodgate valve, (link on previous post) is not a standard check valve, and it has been working. I wouldn't use anything else.

If sewage is backing up into toilets, tubs, etc. - look into getting a backflow check valve - I had the problems described and this solved the problem. Essentially when water starts flowing back into the house the "door" closes. I also urge anyone who might have this problem to speak with their doctor about HEP A and B vaccinations. You are being exposed to raw sewage and should take this precaution.

Something that needs investigation: when a strong storm is predicted, can the city somehow open the water treatment facilities to allow faster runoff. I know this adds crap to the river but the alternatives are the situations in people's houses described in these posts.

OK Jersey Dog, the behaviour of the water that you are describing is almost exactly like what happened to us when we moved to Grove Street 2 years back. I don't necessarily think a blockage is the roblem, although there may be a blockage, you may still have a problem evewn after you clear it.

Was you house a condo renovationd eal? If so then the scumbag contractor that built the place (is there any other kind?) probably saved himself $25 by putting in the cheapest sump pump available. We had a 1.5 hp that was rated to evacuate around 2500 gallons per hour. What happens in a heavy rain is that the city's infrastructure can't handle it, and the water table rises- this means that more than 2500 gallons per hour is coming in. We temporarily solved the problem by lterally bailing out the back "concrete cove" with giant snow shovels. Thsi woudl happen literally every heavy rain this time of year, like 4 or 5 times in 2 months. You will liekly have the same problem.

You can't stop the water coming in, so you have to remove it faster than the porosity of the ground and walls allows it to enter. We bought a much more powerful sump pump, rated at about 6500 gallons per hour. It is fast enought to win the race with the water, privded there is no power outage. The pump goes for about $140 at Home dept. It's a lot cheaper than installing a french drain, so I would start with this. Also, make sure that the check valve on the pump is installed in the right direction. The pinhead who was our contractor put it in reversed.

You can lay partial blame on the moon. The worst floods happen during high tides.

bad municipal sewage system+ heavy rain+ high tides=disaster

it's obvious that jersey city has a drainage and sewer problem..you can smell it in different areas of downtown when you are walking around. how can the city deny this

Scott - Great description!! It's precisely what happens in our bathroom on our garden floor (we only have one). We experienced a slight back-up on Wednesday as well. However, the situation seems to have improved slightly since the installation of new drain covers in the corner of our street.
The guys from the MUA keep trying to convince me that street drainage has nothing to do with my flooding problem - but it's obvious that it does. They're also very fond of dismissing the back-up to 'elevated sea level'.....absolutely no help.

From the bubbling of the toilet to the water creeping up through the toilet base, sounds like your situation mirrors ours exactly (I don't have water coming in from the walls like some have described in previous threads) - so, I'd be very interested in hearing what you come up with as far as prices and possible solutions.

Here's a tip... during heavy rains, a Water Alarm placed in the empty tub is a great indicator of when to start unraveling the hose and plugging in that submersible pump!

Email sent back to me by a plumber here:
A flash flood or unusual rainfall exceeds the installation design of most area drains along with the city sewers inability to handle such a load. Unfortunately, not much can be done to resolve such an event.

Thanks Scott, it's nice to know I was not alone. It does sound like your in a lot worse situation then I. I've had no toilet problems so far (KNOCK KNOCK).

We?re neighbors of Ben?s and experiencing ?flooding? on our garden level that's due to the sewers backing up. Most recently, this happened twice on Wednesday, 7/6/2005. The second time I was ?lucky? (yeah... right) enough to be downstairs to witness exactly what happens in our particular case.

Some background? our garden level contains two bedrooms; each bedroom has a bathroom with toilet/bathtub/sink.

We got a microburst of rain about 6:00 pm when I was downstairs. The toilet started to bubble, like a roiling boil, as if water was forcing the air up from the trap. I was bouncing back from bathroom to bathroom to see where water got in first. Waste water backs up into the bathtub filling it about 4 inches.

You figure if the pressure in the sewer line is strong enough to fill the tub 4 inches, it must be substantial. The toilet and bathtub are on the same level. I?m sure that equal pressure is on the toilet exhaust.

Now, I?m not toilet engineer, but it makes sense to me that a toilet is built to be relatively watertight ONE WAY on the outbound side. With constant water pressure inbound, the water has to go somewhere. The bathrooms were done when we bought our place, so I can?t say for sure what the floors are like under the bathroom.

What I witnessed was waste water coming up from the bathroom floor!! My suspicion is that water comes up the toilet exhaust, then travels along the subflooring boards and surfaces wherever it?s porous enough (breaks in the grout, around the toilet base, etc.). As soon as the water recedes in the bathtub, the water stops coming up from the floor.

YUCK!....@#%....

Needless to say, we?re in the process of contacting plumbing contractors for different proposals. Somehow it doesn?t seem right that the property owners in town have to pay for outside solutions for something that is so obviously a municipal utility issue.

Consider installing an overhead sewer line

It was raining the day we moved into our garden-level apartment near Van Vorst Park, and that night the apartment flooded - sewage backed up and started spewing out of our bathroom sink and bathtub. We began bailing muck out into the back yard, and we were so freaked out we called the fire department. The officer who arrived a few minutes later told us there was nothing he could do, eveyone in JC had to deal with floods from time to time, and his own basement was regularly submerged. Out stuff was still in (soggy) boxes, and, believe me, we debated moving them right back to Manhattan. But our landlord generously offered free cleaning and a free month's rent. Now, nearly two years and several soakings later, we are buying a 4th floor condo!
Wish I could be more helpful, but at least your sad story has motivated me to finally register and post.

I have a similar problem: I live in the heights and I'm one of the lucky few that have a driveway and a garage. The driveway slopes down into the garage. There is a small drain in the middle of the driveway and a drain the length of the garage door.

My problem is that the garage keeps getting water in it. We've cleaned out the drains (to the best of our ability) and poured sulfuric acid down the drain (as recommended by the hardware store guy)

We were thinking of pouring a small concrete hump inside the garage to prevent flooding. Any other ideas?

I suggest to try to determine the cause of the flooding.

Was your drain clogged and the flooding from the rainwater or did sewer water back up through the drain? Did water come in through any other drains/toilets? Did water come through cracks in the floor and walls.

The western part of downtown is below sealevel / used to be marshes and prone to flooding. Also as mentioned many experience problems with sewer water backing up from the mains.

We have owned this house for 6 months and this is the first problem we have had (this was not the first storm either) . I've lived on this block for over 2 years and know a few people who live on the garden level and have had no problems.

Quote:

When I moved to JC in '82 I lived on Barrow Street off the park in a duplex brownstone. The lower level was on the garden level and the backyard was a concrete cove with similar drain. I can't tell you how many times we were flooded on a regular basis and we'd have to run a sump pump around the clock with a length of tubing dumping out to the street storm drains in order to remove water. We were just renting so we moved out and I've never rented an apt on the garden level again downtown since this is a known massive problem.

Take Ben's advice if you are a homeowner, and replace your main from the house to the street or if you're a renter, move!

Thanks everyone for your help so far. I started digging into the drain and took some mudd and other stuff out. I'm very worried about the rain tomorrow.

I have researched french drains and I think this is the only way to go. The theory, so Im told, is to manage the water flow not control it. Check valves will only do so much, but if you have water coming in through the floor or walls you have to go with the French Drain. 5k to 10k depending on where you go. (Word to the wise...stay away from Mid-Atlantic...very high slime factor.) It baffles me that we live in the modern age and Jersey City can not provide even the most basic of services for civilization...sewer control. Im on the bandwagon for whoever gets the ball rolling. Something HAS to be done. And by the way....everybody get ready:

*********

BULLETIN - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
FLOOD WATCH
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE UPTON NY
ISSUED BY NWS TAUNTON MA
1115 AM EDT THU JUL 7 2005

...A FLOOD WATCH HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR LATE TONIGHT
THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES...

IN NEW JERSEY...
HUDSON...BERGEN...PASSAIC...ESSEX AND UNION.

HEAVY RAIN ASSOCIATED WITH THE REMNANTS OF TROPICAL STORM CINDY IS
FORECAST TO MOVE INTO THE TRI-STATE AREA LATE TONIGHT. PERIODS OF
HEAVY RAIN WILL THEN BE POSSIBLE THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING BEFORE
TAPERING OFF.

A TOTAL OF TWO TO THREE INCHES OF RAIN IS FORECAST...WITH SOME
LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS POSSIBLE. FLOODING OF POOR DRAINAGE AREAS
IS LIKELY. IN ADDITION...SOME STREAMS AND SMALL RIVERS IN THE
TRI-STATE AREA MAY APPROACH OR GO ABOVE BANKFULL BY FRIDAY EVENING.

A FLOOD WATCH MEANS THAT FLOODING OF STREAMS...CREEKS AND OTHER
DRAINAGE AREAS IS POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA. PEOPLE IN THE WATCH
AREA SHOULD KEEP AN EYE ON THE WEATHER AND BE PREPARED FOR IMMEDIATE
ACTION SHOULD HEAVY RAINS AND FLOODING OCCUR OR A FLOOD WARNING BE
ISSUED.

STAY TUNED TO NOAA ALL HAZARDS RADIO OR VISIT OUR WEB SITE AT
WEATHER.GOV/OKX FOR FURTHER DETAILS OR UPDATES.

It doesn't cost that much, super_furry. We replaced our ceramic main from the house to the street a few years ago; it was about 2k for the excavation. Probably a little more now, but certainly not close to 20k. You don't need to tear up the basement if you put the valve in the front of the house.

The valve itself costs $1800. I've posted it here before, but here it is again. Regular check valves, in my experience, don't work. This one does, or seems to be working anyway.

http://www.jrsmith.com/products/prodcat.htm

If you have the original clay sewer line, those valves can build up enough pressure to destroy the line. To replace the sewer line, the basement has to be excavated, and a trench dug out in the street. This costs $$$, I think 20k or so.

Quote:

It's a serious issue. It was on the agenda at the meeting last night, although I couldn't go. That might be a good place for you to start.

I used this floodgate valve, installed by Guarini plumbing, which seems to be working.

But in the long run it'll become an issue at our house again. It's outrageous really (excuse the hyperbole) that we're at the mercy of the rain here the way we are.

I live in Brazil sometimes where the rains are torrential, like yesterday but for hours at a time. Even there, where people live on one-hundred dollars a month, they have a modern sewage system that works, and a government that responds.

We had an open sewer running through our neighborhood when I got there in the early nineties. Residents complained and complained, and the city finally installed giant sewer mains, almost big enough to stand in. Ours here in Jersey City, by contrast, are maybe a foot wide, and many are still made of the original ceramic.

*******

Jersey City MUA

Many residents in downtown Jersey City suffer from flooding with each rain. It?s time to challenge the MUA to address these issues. Tom Gibbons will spearhead a campaign to draw attention to this issue and will address the community on his thoughts.

from what i have heard flooding is a big problem in jersey city because the drainage system is old and always getting backed up

Has anyone ever had a flooding problem living on the garden level? We live on the garden level and outside our back door have two steps going up to the main level of the backyard. In the cove leading up to the steps there is a drain that I assume drains the water during a rain storm. Yesterday it must have overflowed and all the water came into the house. It was a real mess and very unsettling. This has not happened to us since we lived here for the past six months. Has anyone had this problem or experience? And can anyone offer any ideas to help us out? Thanks.