The bowl runeth over

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Students in three Rockville Centre schools found themselves in quite a stinky situation when toilets began to backup.

The problems occurred at Riverside and Covert elementary schools as well as South Side High School. It was only a one-time issue at Riverside, but the problem keeps rising up at Covert and South Side.

“In previous years we didn’t have this problem,” said Superintendent Dr. William Johnson. “We’re going to have to go inside the pipes and see if there’s something going on in there we didn’t know about.”

As the district cleans out the pipes, it has been pulling up large wads of toilet paper, Johnson said, which have been causing the blockages. The district hasn’t changed the paper it uses, though, and doesn’t know why this problem is arising now.

“Even though we’ve been flushing out [the pipes], it’s happened more than once,” Johnson said.

The overflows don’t damage anything, but they do create a huge mess and, sometimes, a very unpleasant smell. “Sometimes the odor is not particularly wonderful, but we’ve been able to get rid of it,” said Johnson.

The cost for cleaning out the pipes and floors comes out of funds that the district has set aside in its maintenance budget for emergencies. According to Johnson, the cost of cleaning up the messes hasn’t been too significant so far.

“We’ll continue to look at it,” Johnson said. “We’ve never had this problem before.”