A resident is looking to leave his home after days of odor from standing sewage that filled his basement over the weekend. The City of Bloomington has a consolidated sewage line in some areas (especially the older areas on the West side), so the storm water runs into the same system as the toilet water.
“We had about six inches of standing sewage. I mean, it just smells horrible. We’ve woken up the last two days nauseated. I don’t know that we can stay in our house. We have a 1,000 square foot basement, so six inches of standing sewage means we had 500 cubic feet of urine and feces soaking into all of our belongings. I mean it is a nightmare, it is going to take us a whole week to move everything out into the garage. Not to mention the thousands of dollars to replace all of the walls and the floors down there,” said Bloomington resident of Ward 1 William Mahrt.
The basement was 1,000 sq ft. On the floor remains the residue of feces.
Mahrt has a five-year old child and was concerned for public health, he placed a call to the McLean County Health Department.
“I called the McLean County Health Department and the lady I got on the phone with said she works for the county and not the city and to call the city,” said Mahrt. “It was an unbelievable response.”
The McLean County Health department Public Affairs Coordinator Marianne Manko said the department is working on possibly issuing a flood declaration.
“I think there have to be certain requirements in order for that to be the case. They’re in the process right now, June 29 2021,” said Manko.
Mahrt did call the city and they referred him to the PMA Companies phone number to make a claim. He called 8 a.m. yesterday, June 28, but has not gotten a representative from the Bloomington third-party claim handler.
“We filed a claim with PMA Companies. Home owner’s insurance, from what I am hearing, they are just going to deny the claims because they don’t cover floods and if you tell them it is sewer, they’ll tell you ‘we don’t cover city sewer,'” said Mahrt. “City of Bloomington told me to call PMA.”
The sewage in Mahrt’s basement has drained now, but the damage is severe and the odor is lingering.
“It is caked onto our floors, walls and our belongings. Our children’s books and Christmas ornaments,” said Mahrt. “I think everybody is going to say, ‘We aren’t covering it.’ I’m a lawyer so I am hoping I don’t have to file a lawsuit, but we will see.”
Mahrt said as a lawyer he is thinking the insurance companies wrote in exceptions in the policy when it comes to flooding. The next step in a lawsuit would be to inquire about the history of the Bloomington sewer line.
“We’d have to go through discovery and file FOIA requests to find out: ‘What did they know about their sewer line?’ ‘When did they know? How many times has it backed up in the past?’ I would love for them to answer all of those questions for me,” said Mahrt. “‘How much money have we spent on the Colosseum in the past year? How much have we spent to separate the sewer line?’ Those are questions I would love to have answered.”
These are some summaries from the Capital Improvement projects for the Fiscal Year of 2020.
- FY 2020 Capital Improvement Summary for BCPA Capital Campaign- $775,000
- FY 2020 Capital Improvement Summary for Arena Fund- $525,000
- FY 2020 Capital Improvement Summary for Sanitary Sewer Fund- $4,385,000
Mahrt said he plans to stay with his family in an extra bedroom with family in town. Mahrt resides in Ward 1.
