Pittsford residents deal with foul odor, sewage spill after tree roots damage pipe

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – A massive sewer pipe backed up over the weekend in the town of Pittsford, causing thousands of gallons of sewage to escape into a tributary that runs into Allen’s Creek. The tributary backs up to a number of homes off French Road.

A right here is the source of all of the problems. Its roots grew into the pipe, and that’s when the trouble started.

Stephanie Pagano lives about a mile away from the tree, with the tributary running straight through her backyard.

“It eventually flows into Allen’s Creek and out to Irondequoit Bay to Lake Ontario,” Pagano said.

Normally, the tributary is beautiful, but not this past weekend.

“Saturday morning there was a mild smell, Sunday morning much more pronounced, my husband walked out, said get the dogs inside … looked at the creek, it was gray,” Pagano described.

And the smell was horrendous.

“It smelled like a latrine, like a port-a-potty had exploded, and it was really pronounced,” Pagano said.

The Paganos immediately called the Town of Pittsford and the state Department of Environmental Conservation, then waited for a response.

“The first notification from the town, formal like ‘here you go, here’s what’s going on, neighbors,’ was Wednesday, so it was four days,” Pagano said.

The problem was located below a manhole in the middle of the woods behind the Pittsford Boat House, where the roots of the willow tree had busted the sewer pipe.

“One of my guys had to get down in there and hatchet it up and open it up so that we could clean up around it,” said Jim Peterson from the Town of Pittsford Sewer Department.

But by then, 10 gallons a minute of sewage had been pouring out for at least 20 hours.

“We’re doing the best we can and doing it as fast as we can because of the impact to the environment and to the public,” Peterson said.

A bypass has been set up to handle the mess left behind.

“We’re pumping water from the canal into the stream to kinda wash down, downstream,” Peterson explained.

The DEC says there isn’t any direct danger to humans or animals, but Pagano and her neighbors aren’t totally convinced.

“I have animals, I got both dogs, they’re both a little sick,” Pagano said.

Flushing the tributary seems to be helping with the smell, which is good news for Pagano — who is hosting a graduation party for her daughter in her backyard.

“Monitoring and maintaining of infrastructure, it’s hard but it’s like the basic thing that government has to get right, it’s the basic thing. The canal parties and the Bills coming to Pittsford, wonderful — just keep my pipes clean, right?” Pagano said.

And she plans to let the town know her thoughts at an upcoming meeting.

“There’s a Town Board meeting on Tuesday, I’ll show up, give my observations and maybe they can learn from it. I mean something as simple as what is the protocol for notification — four hours, not four days,” Pagano said.

The town has cleared out a lot of the area where some of these hidden manholes were located. They’re planning to do a full assessment of all of them in this wooded area to ensure nothing like this happens again.

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