Ross Residents Complain of Persistent Sewage Overflows near Little Pine Creek

Owners of half dozen homes along Little Pine Creek in say the township could and should do more to fix the problem of over-flowing sewage in their back yards after heavy rains. 

Sue Calvert has lived at 203 Amity Road for 38 years. 

“We can't use our toilets when the water is high,” she said. “ It gets in our property, it's unsafe to be on your land and you can smell the sewage. We shouldn't have to live with sewage in our back yards and in our homes.” 

Calvert’s neighbor, Sharon Michael experiences the same headaches. 

“I also can not use my restroom, my laundry or any facilities when the water is up. I have animals, so I have raw sewage in my yard,” she said. “My property value is suffering for it. I'm paying the taxes that everybody else is in Ross Township; I don't deserve to live this way.” 

The residents acknowledge that the township has tried several solutions, but the problem persists. 

“They actually put a check valve in, the township said would fix our problem,” said Robert Michael, Sharon’s husband. “Well, that fixed the problem with the sewage backing up into our home, but when the creek is high you still can't use any of your water, cause it can't go out of your home when that check valve is closed.” 

Keeping up with news in the North Hills is easy—simply sign up for our daily email newsletter, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Michael Funk has been Ross Township’s Director of Public Works for 8 months, and is now getting caught up on the history of the Amity Road problems. 

“We’ve put some water tight lids on some of the sewer caps and that’s helped a bit,” he said. “And after the last heavy rain on July 28, we went back to investigate again.” 

Funk said workers discovered a lot of storm water was getting into the sewer system underneath Byron Road, which parallels Amity from on top of the hill above Thompson Run Road. 

“We will put some new, water tight lids on Byron,” he said. “We have to do something and this seems to be the best place to start.” 

Sue Calvert thinks the creek should be dredged, particularly under the Sutter Road Bridge. But she believes the ultimate solution is to direct the creek into an underground pipe. 

“They've done it near LaRoche College so they can put pipes in there and put it underground,” she said. “It not only would be safer, it would sturdy the hillside because the hillside is falling.” 

Funk said finding the money for such a project is problematic, and he’s not sure anything would work when it rains as hard as it did on July 28. 

“McCandless got 3-and-a-half inches of rain in a little over an hour that night,” he said. “The creek was actually up to the brand new Thompson Run Road Bridge. When you have that kind of rain, it doesn’t matter what you do. A lot of water comes down that hillside.”