KINGWOOD — Members of the Preston County Sewer Board voted to contact their attorney about rags and grease going into the sewer system and causing problems. Grease and rags from Pine Ridge Nursing Home is plugging up one of their man holes, according to board member Randy Plum.
Plum said if the situation was caused by a home owner, the town couldn’t monitor it. He said they can if it is caused by a restaurant or commercial building.
“We need to address Pine Ridge,” Plum said. “We put $38,000 in fixing this.”
Supervisor Nick Wolfe agreed. He said it is mainly paper and cotton rags and grease that is going into the sewer system and causing the problem.
“Now we’re catching it (grease and rags). We have to go out and clean it up every week,” he said.
Mayor Jean Guillot said Pine Ridge has high power flushing toilets. He said maybe some of the staff is flushing the rags instead of throwing them away.
The grease is coming from the grease pits in the kitchen.
Guillot told Wolfe to put together a spec sheet and contact their attorney to see what can be done to eliminate the problem.
“It’s on their side of the line,” Plum said. “They should have an engineer come in and look at it.”
Plum said another problem to be dealt with is flooding on Old Tunnelton Pike.
A ditch on Old Tunnelton Pike recently overflowed during heavy rains, sending water into garages owned by the Kingwood Sewer Board.
Guillot said flooding also washed away all of the gravel in the parking lot.
“It comes off the old railroad bed,” Guillot said. “I went out and checked. The ditching stops at one property owner’s property, and the water washes across the road into the parking lot.”
“The state right-of-way is 15 feet,” Plum said. “The state needs to ditch it.”
When ditching was done over the summer, the ditch wasn’t tied into a culvert.
“Our maintenance forces have ditched along that road and were met by one of the landowners, who mentioned that he mows and regularly maintains his property and didn’t want a ditchline on his property … that if we sloped the shoulder, he would continue to maintain it,” Brent Walker, director of Communications of the state Department of Transportation, said.
Board members went into executive session to discuss personnel.
