The Fox Metro Water Reclamation District and Factor Inc. have negotiated a deal to get the food preparation company in compliance and avoid any more sewer overflows in Aurora.
In addition, representatives from Factor, which is located at Indian Trail and Orchard Road on Aurora’s far West Side, this week began contacting the homeowners affected to begin reimbursing them for damage and loss of contents from the flooded basements caused by a sewer overflow a couple of months ago.
“We finally did, yes, get calls,” said Janet Dellorto, an Alameda Drive resident who had floors and walls damaged, and lost a lot of the contents of her basement. “I’m feeling so much better. It’s been stressful, but we are moving forward.”
The deal is in response to a Jan. 24 overflow of a 30-inch Fox Metro sewer line that caused a backup in 32 homes on Alameda, Sapphire, Almond, Richards and Shady Lane, mostly in the Indian Trail West and Greenfield subdivisions.
The houses experienced a sewer back-up into their basements of varying degrees, but all having raw sewage – Class 3 water as identified by the Environmental Protection Agency containing bacteria. The sewage destroyed items it flooded, damaged floors and walls and forced a clean-up and repairs, residents said.
The interceptor runs along the southeast corner of Indian Trail and Orchard Road, and was clogged by a “massive amount of grease,” according to Karen Clementi, Fox Metro district manager.
The large grease ball backed up sewers that feed into the interceptor which then backed up smaller lines throughout the West Side. Fox Metro owns and maintains all sewer lines in its district of 15 inches and larger; any smaller sewer lines are owned and maintained by the municipalities, in this case the city of Aurora.
Fox Metro cited Factor for seven violations of three of its ordinances: Four violations of the Pre Treatment Ordinance, two violations of the Grease Ordinance and one violation of the Sewer Use Ordinance.
In addition to damaging the individual houses, Fox Metro said in the violation of the Sewer Use Ordinance that Factor also damaged Fox Metro property “that directly or indirectly jeopardizes public health and safety.”
Clementi said the two entities have negotiated a compliance plan, with Factor reimbursing Fox Metro for any damage and the cost of the time it took the governmental body to investigate the incident.
In a letter Clementi sent affected residents last week, she outlined steps taken after two months of working on the situation. Clementi and Chuck Nelson, a Fox Metro board trustee, had met with some of the residents in person.
The steps taken included the negotiations with Factor and corrective actions Factor has taken at its plant at Indian Trail and Orchard Road. They also included Fox Metro cleaning the public sanitary sewers of “grit, grease and other debris to ensure free-flowing pipes.”
Fox Metro also did further inspections and televised the interceptor to assess any additional damage, and found none.
The agency is doing almost daily visual checks of the surrounding manholes to make sure there are no obstructions, the letter said.
“They’ve (Factor) done some cleaning, we’ve done some cleaning,” Clementi said.
A spokesperson for Factor confirmed the company has been “partnering with Fox Metro on remediation” in regard to the situation.
“We take this seriously and are working closely with Fox Metro on providing each impacted homeowner with a fair and just resolution,” the spokesperson said.
Clementi said in investigating the situation, officials did not “see any sign of negligence or malice” on the part of Factor.
She said it seems to be a case of Factor’s food service business, which provides ready-made meals delivered to people’s homes, getting “super popular, super fast.”
“It’s like they were driving 100 mph on I-88, over our pipe, putting 10 pounds into a five-pound box,” she said. “But they’ve addressed a lot of that.”
Meanwhile, Dellorto said she and her neighbors are hoping to recover some from the stressful situation.
“I can’t tell you the stress and anxiety this caused me and my family, and my neighbors too,” she said. “Seeing your basement gutted, watch your things be hauled away … we are moving ahead, but it can never take away the grief.”
slord@tribpub.com
