Sewage leak from historic Breakers mansion repaired

June 22, 2016 7:56 pm

By Bianca Buono

bbuono@abc6.com

@BBuonoABC6

One of Newport’s Breakers mansion has been leaking sewage directly into the ocean. The leak is now fixed but if it wasn’t for a group of surfers, it might have gone unnoticed.

"My friends were waiting for the surf to pick up from a passing storm. They noticed a smell from a pipe in this general area so they went over and looked and indeed there was water flowing…We were surprised because we had never seen this pipe flowing before,” said Dave McLaughlin of Clean Ocean Access.

Clean Ocean Access, a local environmental group, took a water sample, sent it to the Department of Health, and it turns out the water the surfers saw was sewage.

"Obviously The Breakers is a huge mansion from the Vanderbilt era but we’ve got to be mindful about down spouts and connection of sewer water and storm water,” said McLaughlin.

The broken pipe was from the Vanderbilt era and was installed in the 1890’s. It was located 14 feet below ground in the middle of the lawn outside the mansion. The Preservation Society of Newport knew they had to move quickly.

"This building will see 440,000 admissions a year and so it is a potentially serious environmental threat,” said John Rodman of the Preservation Society of Newport.

After shutting down the water and replacing the pipes, the leak has since stopped. Clean Ocean Access is not sure how long the sewage was leaking into the ocean but they consider the water to be safe.

"We think it was an isolated event and we don’t think there was a high volume of sewage but indeed for a period of time on that Wednesday afternoon it was flowing,” said McLaughlin.

An environmental agency will be taking a closer look at the pipe repairs to make sure they were done properly. The lawn outside Breakers will be patched in the coming days.