BETHEL — The Board of Selectmen canceled Wednesday’s special meeting to deal with a problem with the sewer line.
The sewer drain line from the Bethel Post Office was going into the town’s storm drain and ending up in a brook.
Building owner Carl Glidden has made arrangements to fix the problem himself. It was expected to be repaired sometime Wednesday.
Town Manager Christine Landes said Monday the mistaken hookup was discovered last week when wastewater treatment plant employees inspected the basement during a sewer customer inventory. They suspected something wasn’t right with the internal piping, she said. The employees put dye into the toilet water of the building’s two bathrooms and discovered it was coming out in Sanding Brook, which empties into the Androscoggin River.
Landes said the brook flows largely underground to the river.
She said the overall impact of the sewage flow is likely relatively minimal, because the bathrooms are not public and there are only a few employees. And unlike a house, there are no large discharges of water, such as for showers or washing machines.
Fixing the problem will involve digging up the ground under a sidewalk that runs alongside the Post Office, next to a parking lot. The storm drain runs under High Street behind the building, Landes said.
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