40,000 Gallons of Sewage Discharged in Saline

The City of Saline sent notices after a sewage discharge around 9 p.m. on Sept. 18.

An estimated 40,000 gallons of sewage discharged to pavement and the storm sewer system toward the Wood Outlet Drain, which flows east-to-west through the north end of the town where until it meets the Pittsfield #1 Drain just west of Ann Arbor Saline Road and south of Woodland Drive.

The city will perform upstream and downstream sampling of the drain to determine if there was an impact.

The spill has been contained.

In the Saline Posts Facebook Group, Councillor Dean Girbach shared a message from City Manager Colleen O'Toole.

"It appears the event occurred when the generator test switched back to DTE power. The generator runs on an automatic test cycle weekly. An alarm was sent from the lift station to the WWTP system but from there it did not call out. The culprit was a relay. It has been tested several times by forcing the relay to make contact. Everything is now operating properly but staff will monitor conditions the next time the generator is scheduled to cycle at Woodland," O'Toole said.

In June, the wind toppled a DTE pole on the 1300 block of Woodland Drive. 80 gallons of  Dielectric fluids spilled into a storm drain and into the Wood Outlet Drain.

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