Bullhead City wastewater staff urges residents: only three things belong in the sewer
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Summary
A Bullhead City wastewater worker warned that flushing wipes and other items clogs pumps, showing debris from a drying bed and saying preventing such clogs could avoid about $4.05 million in taxpayer costs.
John Trequato, who identifies himself as a Bullhead City wastewater division employee, urged residents not to flush anything but human waste, toilet paper and gray water. He described items recovered from the system'wipes, plastic bags, razors, pencils, candy wrappers, screws, pieces of Styrofoam and hundreds of tampon applicators'and said those materials plug pumps and cause costly repairs.
"There are only 3 things that should be disposed of in the sewer system: 1, human waste. 2, toilet paper. And 3, gray water," Trequato said in the video. He showed the drying bed debris and said crews must pull and clean pumps, sometimes sending damaged pumps to a company for repair or replacement.
Trequato said those failures and associated labor can be expensive. The video gives a figure that preventing improper disposals could avoid "minimum $4,050,000 dollars of taxpayers dollars." The segment does not provide a line-item breakdown or cite a specific repair contract for that amount; readers are referred to the city wastewater division for further details.
The segment framed this as a preventable infrastructure cost and asked residents to dispose of wipes and similar items in the trash to avoid system damage and avoidable taxpayer expense.