An old clay sewer pipe near downtown Bend was discovered to have broken and was sending sewage into the soil.

Bend Public Works Director Paul Rheault says a video inspection of the pipeline on Olney between 2nd and 3rd Streets Wedensday morning brought some startling images.  "It takes all the flow from downtown Bend and runs fairly full all of the time. We drained the pipe and upon video inspection, a large section of the pipe was absolutely missing. All the clay pipe was gone and the sewer water was actually washing away the dirt surrounding the pipe and there was fear of a collapse and also a total pipe collapse as well."

Rheault says it all began with a sewer overflow last week that they were investigating.  He says they know of many other locations in the city that have the aging clay pipe – one is near City Hall that was placed in 1913.  They plan to inspect all pipe locations in the near future.

Crews were on the scene excavating and replacing the aging pipe section with new PVC pipe and Olney should reopen by midnight.