Flooding that forced sewage in several Flandreau homes this fall is more the fault of leaky, old pipes and a bottleneck at the intersection of West and Bridge, an engineer said last week.
There’s nothing wrong with the new sewer system’s design and layout, said Shane Waterman, engineer with Clark Engineering. The sewage that rushed into basements on Bridge Avenue would have happened no matter where the lift station was, he said.
Residents had complained to the city council last month that work that eliminated the lift station closest to those homes likely caused the sewage issue, which included 4 to 5 feet of sewage backing up into basements. Those residents want the city’s insurance company to cover their losses, but so far, they have been told no by company representatives.
Flandreau still has old parts of its system that needs replacing and has chosen to do part of the upgrades but couldn’t afford to do all areas of town. A total project would have cost $23 million, and Flandreau started with $8 million in improvements, said Don Whitman, alderman and former city administrator.

Alderman Bob Pesall said priorities will need to be made. “It sounds like we have to pick the highest risk areas of town and replace the old lines so we don’t get all of that infiltration,” he said.
Alderman Jason Unger said the last 10 years of improvement have been one of the most important things the city has done.
“One thing I think they’ve done right is this massive investment in infrastructure. Things like this just show how far we have to go,” he said.
To help those who had sewage backups, the city will look at installing backfill valves to prevent future problems.
Resident Brenda Oswald said her son’s family is living in limbo and can’t fix up the basement because of concerns of a repeated backup in the spring.
“What is the timeframe to get this fixed?” she asked. “Could they do a little more proactive stuff to prevent this from happening?”
Resident Jim Amdahl, who had two backups in the spring before putting on a backfill valve, said groundwater and infiltration isn’t a homeowner’s problem but a system problem.
“Why are we being denied all the time when actually the system does have a problem?” he asked.