Editor’s note: This article was first published in the Stowe Reporter on Thursday, May 22, 2014.
The Hardwick Wastewater Treatment Facility sprang a leak May 15 and discharged more than 1 million gallons of unchlorinated water into the Lamoille River.
Morristown Health Officer Todd Thomas advised people to stay out of the Lamoille River over the weekend, and to keep their pets out of the water as well. The town posted temporary signs in Oxbow Park and other river access areas warning people to stay out of the water.
According to Hardwick Town Manager and Deputy Health Officer Jon Jewett, the leak was caused by a liner failure in the secondary lagoon at the municipal facility. The wastewater in the secondary lagoon was treated but not disinfected, Jewett said. He said every gallon of water that escaped had already been in the lagoon for nearly a month.
“It’s been tertiarily treated,” Jewett said. “The only thing it didn’t have was the coliform reduction.”
The leak began May 15 and continued for roughly 20 hours, discharging about 1,081,000 gallons of water into the Lamoille River, Jewett said in an email sent Friday afternoon. By then, the leak was essentially over, “but we wanted any downstream users to be aware of the problem,” he said.
One million gallons of water in the Lamoille River is a drop in a bucket, Jewett said, but there is a chance that, without the water being disinfected, it could contain coliform bacteria, such as E. coli.
Hardwick’s wastewater plant consists of two lagoons roughly eight feet deep and each containing 3 million gallons. The liner that ruptured around 4 p.m. last Thursday was originally installed in the 1970s. Jewett estimated it would cost about $25,000 to replace the liner with a more modern one that could last several decades. However, the price tag could skyrocket if the state calls for total replacement.
