The city of Pottsville in Schuylkill County, Pa., faced a serious problem with wastewater overflows, caused in part by the design of its 1800s-era masonry sewers.For many years, raw sewage transported by the 4-foot pipes emptied straight into a creek. In the 1970s, the city installed an interceptor to collect a portion of the flow and send it to the recently built wastewater treatment plant.Although that remedied some of the problem, the combined sanitary/storm sewer system had a flaw. After a large rainstorm, the interceptor would overwhelm the treatment plant with stormwater, and the plant would flood, sending untreated or
