Big Stink: Residents Lament Stench Of Raw Sewage In OKC Neighborhood

Those who live around Ski Island and Silver Lake in northwest Oklahoma City are trying to get rid of a big stink.

There are several cracks in the 40-to-60-year old sewage lines for Bethany-Warr Acres. Bethany-Warr Acres sewage goes all the way up to a treatment plant in north Edmond.

After big storms, rain flushes some of that sewage out of manholes and sometimes back into homes.

At least one spewing manhole feeds right into Ski Island Lake.

Neighbors say it's made for a big smelly mess.

"I have feces and toilet paper in my backyard,” said Shelly Brotherton.

Brotherton said the sewage will back into her home on a day when it rains really hard. She takes off the covers of the clean-up lines so the sewage goes into her yard and not her home on Silver Lake.

“The amount of rain we are getting is overwhelming the ability for the pipe to transfer the water out,” said Glen Brentnell, the General Manager of the Warr Acres Public Works Utility.

Brentnall believes the water coming from sewer manholes is 90 percent water.

The Bethany/Warr Acres Public Works Authority has said for months that it’s been using "flow monitors" to find the cracks in the sewer line where the rain water is coming into the lines. 

It doesn't have a time table of when the cracks will be fixed but is working the Department of Environmental Quality.