'Possibly the worst blockage I’ve seen:' Cork people urged to bin wipes after crews spend hours unclogging sewer

CREWS from Cork City Council spent eight hours unblocking a sewer that was “fully chocked” with wet wipes over the weekend.

Simon Lyons, who looks after the drainage operations in Cork City Council said crews were on-site on Saturday morning dealing with the significant blockage.

Mr Lyons said the incident was the worst he had seen.

“This is possibly the worst blockage I’ve seen in my time here, which is four years,” he said.

“This is a really, really bad one. Just a huge collection of wipes.”

Crews spent a total of eight hours attempting to dislodge a 375mm sewer which was blocked with a one-meter long “sausage” of wet wipes.

Mr Lyons said that a large number of wipes were also removed before the blockage was released.

“There must have been maybe a two-meter length of pipe fully chocked with rags with a sort of a plug or a sausage as I called it.” 

After commencing work on Saturday morning, the blockage was only released at 8 pm that evening.

“This was one so bad really I suppose because it’s such a big pipe so obviously, a bigger pipe carries more flow, so the impact is greater,” said Mr Lyons.

“If a small six-inch pipe blocks and it overflows, there’s only a certain amount of flow in that pipe and you can sort of get a handle on it whereas when these large 15inch pipes block and the sewage is coming down behind it and it’s got nowhere to go, there’s just a larger volume.” 

Mr Lyons stated that while this was a particularly big blockage, wet wipes are a big issue.

“This was a particularly bad one but every day, we are unblocking some part of the network that has wipes.”

He reminded people to ensure that think before they flush.

“Think before you pour, think before you flush and only flush the three P’s- pee, poo and paper.” 

Following the incident, Labour Local Area Rep for Cork City Peter Horgan has said that so-called ‘flushable wipes’ need to be banned and more communications are needed to inform people that they are not flushable.

“There is an onus on retailers to protect our water system by not stocking those wipes that proclaim to be flushable,” said Mr Horgan.

He said there are plenty of biodegradable wipes on the market that should be considered ahead of flushing and that the disposing of those wipes should be done in the correct manner.

“We need to protect our pipe systems from unnecessary blockages, especially coming into the autumn and winter months.”