Faulty Switch in Lift Station Causes Sewage Leak on Beach

A faulty switch in the Brady Drive lift station caused a section of coastline east of Beauvoir to Sadler Beach Drive to be closed Tuesday. These lift stations have been problematic since Hurricane Katrina damaged them, and the city is working to fix the issue.

The switch at the Brady Drive station failed, causing wastewater to be released into the Gulf. The City of Biloxi reported the issue to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (M.D.E.Q.) as soon as they noticed the equipment failure, and the area was deemed unsafe. M.D.E.Q. tested the waters near the Brady Drive lift station and posted a sign so that swimmers would know to avoid the area.

There are more than 100 lift stations like these throughout the city, and they act as pumps to move waste water to the treatment plants on the Gulf Coast. Many of these stations along the Coast were damaged during Katrina and have since been operating using temporary backups and have been problematic for the past few years. It is one of the reasons that the city still remain under a state of emergency nine years after Hurricane Katrina. The city is working to install newer, more efficient lift stations and explains why this process has taken so long.

Vincent Creel, Public Affairs Manager for Biloxi, says, “Since Katrina damaged, heavily damaged, the lift stations, eight of them that we have on the Front Beach, we have not been able to replace them because we haven’t acquired all of the easements along the Front Beach. We have to buy about 200 easements right along Front Beach so that we can add new water lines and new sewer lines.”

The project is expected to begin in the middle of next year and will take about two years to complete.