The Little Andy Sewer Pump Station, the largest in Auburn, failed Wednesday afternoon.
By John Plestina
Special to the Sun Journal

AUBURN – Sewer District crews have been working around the clock since Wednesday maintaining sewer service to the southern portion of the city.

The Little Andy Sewer Pump Station, located at the Little Androscoggin River Bridge on Hotel Road, failed shortly after noon Wednesday. That station is Auburn’s largest.

“With a quick and very capable response by district crews, we prevented any wastewater overflow,” district Superintendent Norm Lamie said Friday morning. Four 6,000-gallon trucks were used to bypass the station that normally pumps 1.5 million gallons per day or about one-third of the total system flow.

Lamie said the district notified its two largest customers, the Poland Spring Bottling Co. and Cascades Auburn Fiber. “On a normal day about 650,000 gallons from these two customers alone gets pumped by the Little Andy Station. Both these customers have the capability to hold on site about 24 hours of volume,” he said.

An inspection revealed a cracked cast iron globe valve that allowed wastewater to enter the normally dry side of the Smith Loveless Station.

“This flooded our three pumps, motor controls, and instrumentation. Our temporary bypass consisted of hauling wastewater by truck around the station for a few hours. This provided us with time to pump down the station, find the source of the problem, do a temporary patch on the globe valve and replace one of the pumps from another station. We have been able to operate effectively on the one pump,” Lamie said.

The district set up a temporary bypass pumping system with the assistance of the Godwin Pump Co.

The district expects to receive parts needed to complete the repairs by the end of this week. Lamie said repair crews are working around the clock and will continue to until the pump station is working properly.

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