South Carolina divers penetrate deep into the sewage tank to catch tufts of wipes obstructing the pumps

CHARLESTON, SC –

Before throwing a towel in the toilet, think twice about it and take into account the divers who could be brought to swim in the sewage of about thirty meters in order to withdraw them later.

This is the message from Charleston Water System, who recently had to send a team of specialized divers to a wet well to unveil a series of pumps completed by a huge jumble of wet wipes.

The hoof was discovered last Thursday at the Plum Island Sewage Treatment Plant. The workers then installed a series of bypass pumps in order to access the clogged pumps without interrupting the city's sewage flow.

With bypass pumps in place, contracted divers from Salmons Marine Contractors in Charleston were sent to the wet well. According to Charleston Water, the divers had to make their way through 80 feet of sewer (blind) and find the source of the obstruction with just their hands.

It took several trips to the divers to completely extract the massive masses of wipes soaked in wastewater and clean the pumps. The operation lasted days and hours, according to the electricity company, but everything was fluid again on Tuesday, October 16th.

(For those who are wondering, the divers were watered with bleach as soon as they came out of the sewers.)

The wipes were not the only things the divers had managed to find; a baseball and a large piece of metal had also found their way into the sewer system, as well as "many other non-fuse objects," according to a tweet from Charleston Water.

If you ask Charleston Water, only three things are really disposable in the toilet: "# 1, # 2 and toilet paper".

Although some manufacturers are very clear about the fact that their products can not be thrown in the toilet, others have introduced products compatible with safe flushes or septic tanks in recent years . A survey conducted by Consumer Reports in 2013, however, questioned the ability of some of these products to break down. CR finally recommended consumers to throw their wipes (even those that can be thrown in a bath box) in the trash.

The week-long saga was not the first time Charleston Water had to undertake this kind of clean-up effort, according to Communications Manager Mike Saia. Four years ago, the company had to do exactly the same type of cleaning to clean a massive collection of wipes.