A stubborn discharge from a series of breaks in an 89-year-old sewer pipe under the 2500 block of W. Lexington Street has been stopped, about a month and a half after the breaks were diagnosed.

A contractor working for the Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) installed a new lining to repair the leaking portions of the 940-foot section of pipe. That stopped what had been a steady loss of sewer water into an adjacent storm drain. Though none of the sewer water surfaced onto the street, the storm drain carried an estimated 580,000 gallons into the Gwynns Falls over the course of several weeks since the leaks were identified.

An earlier attempt to stop the leak by setting up a sewer bypass did not address leaks further down the pipe. Once engineers realized there were additional leaks coming from the connections between segments of the sewer line they began working on a more comprehensive solution. Dye testing confirmed that the leak stopped just before noon on Thursday, October 26.

An asset management program established by DPW is able to find and fix potential problems with aging infrastructure. 

The public is reminded to avoid contact with urban waterways due to the risk of pollution. For information about health concerns as a result of sewer overflows please go to http://health.baltimorecity.gov/sanitary-sewer-overflows-sso.