Gainesville asks: Who’s flushing mopheads down the toilet?
Officials with GRU, the city-owned utility, say an utterly avoidable problem is wreaking havoc on its wastewater system.
A giant-mophead-flushing mischief maker is turning city wastewater officials into amateur sleuths.
An as-yet unknown culprit in northwest Gainesville — unaware or unconcerned that they shouldn’t flush heavy-duty mopheads down the toilet — is creating massive headaches for city officials.
Gainesville Regional Utilities officials say the utterly avoidable problem is wreaking havoc on its wastewater system, costing the city thousands of dollars in damages and workers’ time.
Over the past couple months, GRU has pulled 10 mopheads that have clogged the same wastewater pumping station in the 1100 block on Fort Clarke Boulevard. Seven of them came within the last 31 days.
“I don’t care if we don’t catch the person, I just want them to stop,” said Jennifer McElroy, a GRU supervising environment engineer.