In a press release Jan. 7, Lewes Board of Public Works President D. Preston Lee, P.E, announced the launch of an investigation into the failure of the wastewater treatment plant on American Legion Road, being operated and maintained by White Marsh Environmental Services, an affiliate of Middlesex Water Company. Lewes BPW will coordinate this effort with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and the City of Lewes.

“The BPW board is deeply troubled by the recent failure at the American Legion Road facility,” Lee said. “We are devoting our full efforts to assure that we identify the problem. This will include a thorough review and on-site inspections of all equipment, operational records and procedures by our staff, the plant’s design engineers, the equipment manufacturer’s technical support experts and White Marsh’s operational team. We will have White Marsh correct the failures and implement necessary measures to ensure this never happens again.”

White Marsh took control of operation and maintenance of the facility Feb. 22, 2017.

“We appreciate White Marsh abiding with the order from DNREC to perform enhanced monitoring of effluent, as a well as monitoring waters upstream and downstream of the discharge point in the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal along with their other corrective efforts to date,” Lee said. “We also look forward to their full cooperation in helping to determine the cause of the failure.”

The Lewes Board of Public Works will release further details as the investigation progresses.