A University City meeting was cancelled last Thursday night due to a backup in the sewage lines, closing the new library and recreation center at Nobel Drive and Judicial Drive throughout the night and into the next morning.
“There was a smell, so they decided to shut down the rec center yesterday,” said Madeleine Baudoin, University City representative for land use at the office of District 1 City Councilman Scott Peters. “It is open now. Everything is clean and fine.”
The North University Community Branch Library and Nobel Athletic Center at 8820 Judicial Drive, which opened to the public Sept. 19, was shut down due to a glitch in the new sewage lines. This surprised some members of the public who were denied access to a meeting at the library when a parks department employee noticed a problem 300 feet beyond the access point on the field, said an employee for the City of San Diego’s Parks and Recreation Department.
The problem turned out to be a clog in one of the new sewer lines coming out of the recreation center of the new complex.
“It was not a big deal,” the park and rec employee said. “I saw the bubbling water, and I cleaned up the bubbling water that I saw.”
The newly built, nearly 50-acre complex includes a park, a field, a playground, a library, and a recreation center.
Officials with the park complex and with Peters’ office said only that the sewage line backed up but did not know why the problem occurred.
“They noticed it right away because they noticed the debris on the grass,” Baudoin said.
A plumber was hired to come out and clean out the sewage lines and six inches around the drain where there was a problem. Then the bathrooms were cleaned and disinfected and everything was opened up, the parks department employee said.