Sewage leak shuts down Niketown

Andrew Glazer

COSTA MESA -- A mysterious sewage leak forced the Niketown store in

Triangle Square to close Monday, freezing sales in a prime holiday

shopping season.

The store remained closed Tuesday as the management of the Newport

Boulevard shopping center investigated the source of the leak.

Claudine Leath, a spokeswoman from Nike’s corporate offices, said the

store should be open today after two days of airing out the stench.

Workers at the store wouldn’t comment on the leak or when they would

reopen.

Leath said the company was disappointed to miss out on two hot shopping

days at its only Orange County location. But, she said, Nike wanted to

make sure customers and employees were safe and comfortable.

“There were unbearable odors there,” she said. “Frankly, it was a

priority getting people out of there.”

Sanitary District officials and Triangle Square manager Tom Estes have

different theories about what caused the sewer water to seep through

walls in the store’s basement.

Estes said Sanitation District engineers told him Tuesday morning that

the leak probably came from a break in a mall sewage line. But he said

the leak wouldn’t have occurred if the Sanitation District pipe, into

which the mall’s pipe feeds, hadn’t been clogged.

“The sewage was looking for the point of least resistance and a crack in

our line was it,” he said.

He said the leak stopped after Sanitation District engineers cleared out

its line with a powerful blast of water.

But Dawn Schmeisser of the Sanitation District said that while district

engineers did find a fragment of clay in their sewer line, it was not

enough to cause the overflow.

“The small piece of [clay] didn’t have anything to do with the backup,”

she said.

Schmeisser said the Sanitary District often “hydroblasts” its lines as a

precaution. She said it did not mean there was any clogging in its sewage

pipes.

She added that city engineers believed the leak was from a broken pipe

that connects the mall’s sump pumps to its sewer lines.

Estes said plumbers hired by Triangle Square are trying to find and

repair the fissure so Niketown can open as soon as possible. He commended

the city on its quick response.

“As soon as we called, they came,” he said. “I’m very happy with the

Sanitation District.”