Wastewater-tainted lakes closed after Waseca flooding
Wastewater-tainted lakes closed after Waseca flooding
Waseca closed its surrounding lakes and beaches Sunday after street flooding forced the city to release wastewater into the bodies of water. FOX 9's Corin Hoggard paid the southern Minnesota town a visit.
WASECA, Minn. (FOX 9) - Torrential downpours flooded the city of Waseca and left people in a gross but familiar situation.
They’ve had wastewater flowing through the streets and into some of the lakes.
Unrelenting problem
Waseca wastewater flow:
The sun was out Monday, but the remnants of two days of storms were still obvious at Clear Lake, where untreated wastewater was still trickling into the lake.
"In the last 48 hours, we've been deluged with rain and thunderstorms and tornado warnings," said Waseca resident Linda Joy.
She watched water take over her yard Sunday night as unrelenting rains pounded Waseca.
"I've never seen anything like this," Joy said. "I grew up in Key West, Florida, where we had hurricanes, but the rain here really has been actually almost as much as a hurricane that we've had."
Her basement is swimming in floodwaters, too, forcing her to get rid of anything that’s not elevated.
Scary and worse
Flooding forces contamination:
For her, the storm was scary and the aftermath is a mess, but some of her neighbors may have it worse.
"I saw where they had to open up drainage," she said. "They closed the lakes."
Several Waseca streets flooded, threatening major damage to dozens of homes.
Some residents tell us it was still pouring Sunday night when the water started receding, which they recognized as the moment the city opened valves to let wastewater drain into surrounding lakes.
The city posted to Facebook about lake and beach closures Sunday just as it did in June, and last year, and all the way back to 2016.
Dirty history
Pollution problem:
In fact, city leaders admit to pumping more than 37 million gallons of raw sewage into the environment since 2015.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has threatened fines for illicit wastewater discharges.
And the city asked the state legislature for $5.4 million to build a better wastewater system.
They haven’t gotten the money yet, though, so every storm can create a dirty playground and jumpstart another round of pumping and waiting for weeks to use the beaches and the basements.
"This’ll probably be dry by tomorrow if it doesn’t rain again," Joy said of her own basement.
What's in the water?
The city manager didn’t return our voicemails and emails Monday, but we did want to point out that the water flowing into the lake isn’t sewage.
It's an untreated wastewater, so it can be full of fertilizers and animal waste, but it’s not toilet water.
Torrential rain in Waseca
Why you should care:
It was a wet weekend across much of Minnesota, with Waseca getting one of the highest rain totals in the state over a three-plus day stretch. The area got 10.13 inches of rain. Only Spring Valley, about 80 miles southeast, got more than 10.18 inches of rain.
Waseca residents posted on social media Sunday night that the city opened valves in an effort to prevent flooding after the torrential rain. But it might have led to wastewater getting to areas where it shouldn’t be.
The Source: The City of Waseca provided information via social media, and city residents on Facebook.