County’s drain clog a whopper

Think you’ve got drain problems? Consider yourself lucky if all you’re dealing with is a contrary clump of hair.

Penobscot County’s concrete clog is bigger than Drano and Liquid Plumr combined can handle.

No one knows exactly when it happened, but someone poured concrete down a storm drain in a parking lot behind the 3rd District Court building in Bangor.

As a result, water that is supposed to go into the drain, where it would be funneled down to Franklin Street, has been backing up into the parking lot and spilling over onto the bank of the Kenduskeag Stream.

According to Penobscot County official Peter K. Baldacci, a construction crew noticed the clog while renovating and expanding the jail, but decided to wait until after the project was completed before mentioning it. The problem became evident last summer when employees started using the parking lot again after construction ended.

The contractor, Nickerson & O’Day, and Down-East Associates of Hampden, which built a nearby retaining wall, both reportedly have disavowed responsibility for the plug.

In any event, county leaders now are trying to find the most cost-effective way to unplug it, perhaps with a city-owned suction device used to clean storm drains in less-extreme situations.

This week, a backhoe was called in to dig up the area in hopes of shedding light on how to approach the problem.

The concrete extends the 20-foot length of the drainpipe. Baldacci said Wednesday that both ends of the plug were broken up into pieces that could conceivably be vacuumed, but it remained unknown whether the length of it was like that or whether the middle section was solid. He and other county officials are waiting to hear whether the city would lend the suction machine to the cleanout effort.