Bird caused large sewage discharge in Umeå

Nearly a thousand cubic meters of untreated wastewater were pumped directly into the Ume River in connection with a power outage on Thursday, reports Västerbottens-Kuriren.

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Bird caused large sewage discharge in Umeå
Photo: Samuel Pettersson/TT

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The treatment plant stopped functioning and neither did the backup power. The consequence was that the contaminated water was released into the river.

It's not good at all, notes Sven Thunell, production manager at the municipal company Vakin.

According to the newspaper, a bird may have caused a short circuit in the transformer station at Östteg, which broke the power supply. Since the backup system also failed to start, the treatment plant was forced to take other measures.

This led to us releasing untreated water between 10:16 and 10:40 am before we got the first operation going.

Releasing means a temporary discharge of wastewater into the river. According to Thunell, the river carries away a thousand cubic meters in just a few seconds, so the discharge could not be seen in the river.

The municipal company Vakin is now working on analyzing what happened and taking measures to improve the system.

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By TTEnglish edition by Sweden Herald, adapted for local and international readers

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