LEWISTON — Patrons walking into the Lewiston Public Library have been surprised to hear jackhammers, saws, a sucking vacuum truck and gabbing construction workers.

“People have said, ‘I thought it was supposed to be quiet in the library,'” library assistant Claire Ward said Tuesday.

The reason for all the ruckus: a clogged sewer line that has closed several library bathrooms.

“We’ve determined that the blockage is in the street,” said John Elie of the Lewiston Public Works Department. That means workers will have to dig up the sidewalk and street, which likely will mean part of Lisbon Street will be closed to traffic for a few days.

In a corner of the library near Lisbon Street, crews moved bookcases, tore up carpet, cut open a concrete floor and dug down to find sewer traps to locate the blockage.

“We used jackhammers, concrete saw cutters; it’s been loud,” Elie said. “This used to be an open basement.” At some point the basement was filled in and covered with concrete.

The concrete also covered the traps, which ideally should be floor level. Crews had to dig out the basement to find and uncover the traps. After digging down 6, 7, 8 feet and not finding any traps, “we were beginning to wonder,” Elie said.

Because there wasn’t room for machinery, dirt had to be dug out by hand, said Reggie Poussard of Public Works. They removed dirt by filling up 5-gallon buckets, hoisting up the buckets and dumping them into wheelbarrows. “It was very old-fashioned work,” Elie said.

By Tuesday, the traps were discovered. The lines were snaked. The blockage was pinpointed to 17 feet below Lisbon Street.

Problems began a few weeks ago when there was “back flushing with grit and gravel” in toilets in three of the library’s bathrooms, library Director Rick Speer said.

The blockage could be from something put in the toilets that shouldn’t have been, or it could be a collapsed sewer pipe, officials said. “It’s totally unknown at this time,” Elie said. Some of the sewer lines date back to the 1870s, Speer said.

“Other than the noise and some of the bathrooms being closed, it hasn’t had a huge impact on the library,” he said.

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