What on earth have you been flushing down your toilet? For the first time ever the Department of Environmental Protection is cleaning out the city's 136 miles of sewers, and superintendent of sewer operations Chris Laudando said, "You're surprised every day as to what comes out of there. You see bricks. You see cans, bottles, grease, hairballs." All of which causes sewage to flood the waterways during storms.
The DEP believes that it can reduce the amount of sewage that floods the waterways by 25%, with just eight workers and two trucks working on 20 feet of sewer at a time. And they're finding things like boulders and concrete barriers blocking the system. Laudando said, "When that came out, it was covered with all sorts of debris I don't even want to mention. How does that Jersey barrier get in there, with all the rebar in there? We don't know." They also found a deflated basketball, which we're guessing the sewer gators used for their underground All-Star tournament.
