METAIRIE, La. — Repair crews in Jefferson Parish on Thursday were able to stop the gush of sewage from a broken pipe onto a major road through Metairie, two days after heavy rain caused the foul-smelling disaster.
The crack in the 66'' pipe under West Napoleon Avenue had been patched with a temporary fix last month when it burst the first time. But earlier this week, while crews were still waiting on the parts needed for a permanent fix, the worst happened.
Rainfall from strong storms on Tuesday put too much pressure on the seal, causing it to rupture again. The stretch between Clearview Parkway and Transcontinental Drive has been shut down since then because of the sewage being pumped out onto the ground and the repair crews trying to stem the flow.
Thursday, they succeeded, placing a new temporary band around the damaged area. Unless problems upstream force them to delay their work, crews plan to work through the morning to complete the seal.
The pipe, which carries both sewage and drainage, is a big one, serving about 75% of the Eastbank. It's also old, which Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng says was a big factor in the break.
"The system was like, from back in the '30s when we started developing here," she said.
It eventually goes into the Suburban Canal, which flows into a pumping station by Lake Pontchartrain. It's then ultimately pushed into the lake.
JP Environmental Department staff plan to take samples from both the Elmwood and Suburban canals to measure for dissolved oxygen and fecal content in the water. When they did those tests back in February, after the first rupture, they didn't find any environmental impacts.
Officials say they expect the results from this round of testing will be the same, because most of the extra force on the pipe was from excess rainfall mixing with the normal flow, diluting it.
Results from the canals are expected to take at least five days.
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