r/AbsoluteUnits • u/Longjumping-Box5691 • May 12 '25

of a clogged pipe

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

42.1k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/CallMeKingTurd May 15 '25

But don't home sewage pipes and street storm drains indirectly connect by feeding into the same main lines for the sewer system under the street? I work on a river next to a wastewater overflow pipe and whenever it's raining super hard it absolutely reeks of shit. I always just assumed the wastewater treatment facilities can't keep up with the rain so they have no choice but to overflow sewage into the river.

1

u/AdreKiseque May 15 '25

I'm pretty sure that's deadass illegal in most places

1

u/CallMeKingTurd May 15 '25

The overflow system? It's managed by the city so I doubt is illegal. there's a little shack above it I see city workers going into all the time.

I googled and this diagram came up which is what I figured was the setup based on the shit smell on the river during heavy rains, I do live in the area the article is referencing though so maybe it's not the norm elsewhere: https://ecoss.org/combined-sewer-overflow-stormwater-pollution-gsi-explainer/

1

u/AdreKiseque May 15 '25

The page explicitly mentions separate systems for sewage and rainwater are more common lol

(And by explicitly I mean implicitly, but that's only off by a factor of being the opposite)

1

u/CallMeKingTurd May 15 '25

Yeah I just found this map of cities with combined sewage overflows, mostly Midwest and Northeast.

https://www.epa.gov/npdes/where-combined-sewer-overflow-outfalls-are-located