County Road 1 closed after sewage main break; St. Cloud water should not be affected

Jenny Berg | SCTimes

SARTELL — Drivers are being warned to avoid Stearns County Road 1 after a sewage main break.

"Please avoid County Road 1 by Walmart going into St. Cloud," the city of Sartell states on its Facebook page at about 12:15 p.m. Tuesday. "There has been a main break and crews are currently working on fixing it."

The road is closed and barricaded from the roundabout at County Road 120 to Ninth Avenue North by the bridge to Sauk Rapids, according to John Kothenbeutel, public works director.

A sewage line broke in the same general area along County Road 1 in March 2016.

Kothenbeutel said the cause of that main break was unknown but said after the line broke, the city installed a bypass so there are dual lines in that area.

MORE: Crews work on broken sewage line at CR1 in Sartell (2016)

"It's being bypassed right now. We switched over to the dual line so there's no more discharge," he said. "It discharged for roughly 15 minutes."

Kothenbeutel said as of about 1 p.m. Tuesday, he didn't know what caused the main to break again.

"We don't know. It's 12 feet underground," he said. "But the backhoes are on their way. We'll be digging in the next hour."

Kothenbeutel said the road will likely be closed until Wednesday. Because it's late in the construction season, finding materials to patch up the road might take longer than usual, he said.

The main break will be reported to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, as is standard practice, Kothenbeutel said.

Staff from St. Cloud's public works department was also helping collect wastewater samples Tuesday.

"We're out there helping as needed," said Tracy Hodel, St. Cloud's public services director.

Hodel said wastewater from broken sewage mains in that area has previously flowed into the Mississippi River — as did a fewer than 5,000 gallons of wastewater from this leak — but that small amount will not affect St. Cloud's drinking water.

"If it did get down into the river, it's such a small amount of volume of wastewater," Hodel said, noting the 5,000 gallons of wastewater amounts to about .001% of the flow going by in the river.

"That's hardly anything," she said. "They did a great job responding, shutting pumps down and (cleaning up) what was on the road."

Hodel said the city will be undergoing extra monitoring at the water treatment plant just in case.

"We'll definitely be watching the raw water intake," she said. "We have all the equipment and treatment phases in place to treat for the ...wastewater."