Ridgewood settles resident’s sewage ‘blowback’ case for almost $22,000
MARCH 11, 2015, 9:59 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2015, 10:04 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD NJ— The village has agreed to pay $21,920 to settle a resident’s claim for repairs to her finished basement that flooded when the municipality cleared its sewer lines last September.
The settlement was approved Wednesday night by Mayor and Council.
Resident Jill Feeney said she reached out to village officials soon after discovering the carpet in her basement was soggy and stank.
“It literally smelled like the men’s room at Penn Station on a hot day,” Feeney said Wednesday, noting one foot of sewage-contaminated water was forced up through the drain in her basement’s sink by the village’s work.
As village crews worked to unclog a sewer line next to her Stevens Avenue home in September, Feeney said a pocket of pressurized air formed within a nearby sewer line — the pipe leading to her basement’s sink. The air escaped through the sink, and the contaminated water followed, tainting everything it touched.
Plumbers refer to this rare phenomenon as “blowback.”
I always thought if residents don’t have backflow preventers the village would not be liable
$22K down the toilet and no one held responsible. Business as usual in Ridgewood.