Boston Globe Article

[hemlock]

Originally Posted by Descant

Thanks for pointing this out. The good part is, the system is monitored electronically and the release was caught in short order. Thus, no negative impacts. A failed septic could leach into the lake for an extended time before it is detected.

This particular report said nothing about electronic monitoring. The spill was noticed by a neighboring towns public works director as he happened to be driving home from work. The pump was started the previous day. The pump has a capacity of 300 gallons per minute. When these kinds of pumps start-up it is not uncommon for water hammer to cause a failure at a fitting or break a pipe.
It is entirely possible that the breach occurred at startup which would mean that it could have been flowing for 24 hours or more. This would mean that
400000 to 500000 gallon of untreated sewage flowed directly into Winni. The report also said that this happened previously on November 10th 2023, January 16 2024 and November 4th and 5th of 2024. The scale of this event
is not comparable to a failed septic. Take a look at the photos in the report!