Thursday, December 14, 2006

Sewer problems give students day off in Oskaloosa

by Kenneth Lassiter

In more than 40 years of his educational career, Oskaloosa superintendent Dr. Harry Austin had never had his school district shut down for sewer problems.

That changed Dec. 6 as the Oskaloosa schools closed at 9 a.m. so sewer backup problems could be addressed. As of Monday afternoon, Austin still was unsure what had caused the problem.

Austin said the school’s plumbing began backing up the afternoon of Tuesday, Dec. 5, but the problem began late enough that the school day could finish as planned as district maintenance staff could start addressing the problem. A company from Topeka was brought to Oskaloosa to help clear the pipes and staff members thought the problem was fixed Tuesday night.

Early the next morning the plumbing began backing up again. Faced with the prospect of keeping all the school’s students out of the bathroom and the staff out of the kitchen all day, Austin decided to call off school for the day.

“We thought we got it Tuesday night but then Wednesday morning it started up again. We decided to shut school down so we could get it unclogged,” Austin said. “We were concerned for the safety of the children with the situation as it was. We also weren’t sure how long it was gonna be before we got it fixed.”

Oskaloosa city personnel ran the city’s jetter through the sewer pipes and were able to clear the blockage. Austin said he thought grease from the kitchen was part of the problem but the exact cause wasn’t known for sure to him Monday afternoon.

City maintenance superintendent Bill Heard reported at the Dec. 7 city council meeting he thought grease and a mop head caused the blockage. Austin said maintenance personnel cleaned the necessary areas with bleach water to disinfect the bathrooms and other public areas before school resumed the morning of Dec. 7.

The district planned to bring in a plumbing company to inspect the school’s sewer line with a video camera to pinpoint the problem. Austin said once the district knew for sure what caused the blockage, steps would be taken to make sure the problem doesn’t reoccur.

“It’s working fine now,” Austin said. “We’re trying to be sure the kitchen is running everything through the grease trap. Some of the staff said to me, ‘Surely you’ve had this happen somewhere else.’ I had to say, ‘No, I’ve never had to close school because of sewer problems.’ This was a new one.”