(WHDH) — A team of divers that were forced to swim through raw sewage to uncover the cause of clogged sewer pipes in South Carolina found a massive collection of “flushable” baby wipes that had built up over the years.
Charleston Water says divers searched in complete darkness while wading through a 90-foot well before making the filthy discovery on Monday.
The wastewater utility shared photos of the dirty job on Twitter, asking residents to stop flushing bathroom wipes down the toilet, even those whose packaging says it’s OK.
“You should only flush #1, #2, and toilet paper,” a tweet said.
Divers took “a refreshing bleach bath” after the swim, according to the utility.
A baseball and a large piece of metal were also found lodged in with the wipes.
Then we sent divers 80-90 feet deep into the wet well/raw sewage to search in complete darkness with their hands to find and identify the obstruction. As we expected, they came up with these large masses of wipes in their first two loads, with more to come. pic.twitter.com/XcmZXf9ECF
— Charleston Water (@ChasWaterSystem) October 15, 2018
Here's some more pictures of "flushable wipes" from recent years pic.twitter.com/PkOeflPIRJ
— Charleston Water (@ChasWaterSystem) October 15, 2018
Here’s a few pics from the final dives we completed this morning. A diver gets ready to enter the 80 ft. deep wet well, a look at the surface where he entered, and a refreshing bleach bath after a nice long swim. Glad to report that we've returned to normal operation today. pic.twitter.com/aCHCc2nghP
— Charleston Water (@ChasWaterSystem) October 16, 2018
They also found a baseball and a big piece of metal. Don't flush stuff like this. Joking of course, but you should only flush #1, #2, and toilet paper. The photo looking down into a pool of wastewater shows many other non-flushables. We made this pic low-res for your benefit. pic.twitter.com/fInq5YWU5a
— Charleston Water (@ChasWaterSystem) October 15, 2018
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