Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 65F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 65F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.

Yale resident Maurice Lozier told the News Press raw sewage has been dumping into a wet weather creek along State Highway 51, he believes, for years. The water is covered with a film and the ground is covered with waste solids, he said. 

Yale resident Maurice Lozier told the News Press raw sewage has been dumping into a wet weather creek along State Highway 51, he believes, for years. The water is covered with a film and the ground is covered with waste solids, he said. 

The Yale City Commission held an emergency meeting Monday to approve repairs for a sewer line that has been dumping raw sewage into the right of way for State Highway 51.

Some residents say they have smelled sewage in that area for years but the spill was reported April 13 and again on May 11, according to an environmental alert shared by Yale resident Maurice Lozier. He provided screenshots of the report, which he said went out to environmental agencies around the state and was shared with him by a friend.

Yale City Manager Phillip Kelly told the News Press the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality has been contacted, has inspected the site and has stated it is a clear violation.

It took a while to figure out what was going on with the section of eight-inch clay sewer pipe that carries sewage from the Western Heights housing addition and the apartments operated by the Yale Housing Authority and passes under State Highway 51.

At first they thought it was clogged. But after borrowing clean-out and inspection equipment from the Town of Glencoe and the Oklahoma Rural Water Authority, they found that about 50 feet of the pipe appears to have collapsed, Yale City Utilities Crew Director Tim Campbell said.

City workers shut down the lift station that carries sewage from Western Heights but weren’t able to shut off the flow from Yale’s public housing. That means some sewage is still dumping into a dry creek bed along State Highway 51 that becomes a wet weather creek.

Campbell said workers tried to dam the spill up to keep it from flowing into the creek, but he worries that the heavy rains expected over the next few days will wash it into the stream.

The Yale City Commission approved paying $73,400 to Orr Construction, a company that previously built a gas pipeline for the City of Yale and was recommended by the ORWA.

The City of Yale got the bid on Friday. Open bidding wasn’t required because the commissioners declared an emergency.

Although ODEQ has been advised they are arranging for work to start on the line as soon as possible, the problem could result in fines if it were not handled.

The contractor will insert an 8-inch PVC pipe through the clay pipe, Campbell said. Two new manholes will be added and will be made slightly higher than the previous manholes.

The project can begin as soon as supplies come in because repair and maintenance doesn’t require special permitting from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, he said.

Chief of Police and City Manager Phillip Kelly said the City of Yale will use sfederal COVID-19 relief funds it received through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to pay for the repairs.

Yale has received $120,000 so far and will get another $120,000 this summer.

When asked if the City of Yale had already made other plans for using the money, a visibly frustrated Kelly said, “Yes, we did. We damn sure did. But there’s nothing else we can do.”

The plan had been to make improvements to the town’s water system, which Kelly says is also badly in need of repair. Projects range from replacing water lines all over town – including a block-long run of disintegrating waterline that serves local restaurant the Dairy Hut – to doing work on a lift station and the town’s water tower.

“The whole City has crumbling infrastructure,” he said.

He hopes to find some grants that will either replace the money spent on repairs or can be used to cover other repairs they had hoped to pay for with the ARPA funds.

Until the line is fixed, the lift station serving Western Heights will have to remain shut down, Campbell said. The City of Yale has been having pumper trucks like the ones used to service septic tanks clean out that part of the system. If the right of way fills up, it might have to have a truck pump the sewage-contaminated water out of there as well.

They hope the contractor will have all the parts needed within a few days so they can get to work.

“We don’t have any other choice,” Kelly said. “We’ve got to get it fixed, like, yesterday.”

City and county government, politics, health care

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