Petersburg mimics Wrangell with a broken sewage outfall line

Petersburg is going through the same problem that Wrangell confronted last September: Its sewage outfall line is broken.

Petersburg officials discovered that the diffuser section at the end of the outfall pipe, which disperses treated effluent from the wastewater treatment plant into Frederick Sound, had become detached from the line.

The outfall pipe extends about 800 feet offshore, reaching a depth of 60 feet, to disburse the sewage into the larger waterbody with strong currents.

It’s not known when the line was damaged.

“At some point in the past 35 years, something caused the roughly 16,00...