A problem that has been brewing for years beneath the surface of Cassopolis has recently spilled over to the county government.

Officials with the village and the Cass County government are working to solve an ongoing breakage problem with the Cassopolis sewage system, before the passage of a deadline set by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for the end of September. The two entities have been in talks for the last several weeks since village officials began to suspect that a sewage pump at the Cass County Jail building might be behind the continuing problems with the village’s wastewater system.

Beginning in 2012, the Cassopolis Department Of Public Works first uncovered a line break inside its force main line, which carries wastewater from the village as well as properties on Donnell and Diamond lakes, Vandalia and residences included in the Cassopolis Area Utilities Authority — and the Cass County Jail — to the wastewater treatment plant in Dowagiac for processing, said Ben Anderson, superintendent of the department of public works. Since then, the village has experienced a total of eight additional line breaks, which is believed to be caused by a buildup of pressure within the line, Anderson said.

Each line break costs the village approximately $20,000 to cleanup, the superintendent said.

“They are a pretty nasty problem, aside from just the wastewater spilling onto the ground,” Anderson said.

The continuing problems have caused the DEQ to step in to monitor the situation, with officials recently issuing a deadline for village officials to solve the problem by the end of September, Anderson said.

While monitoring the operation of the lift station located inside the county jail in the spring, Anderson noticed that the jail employed a 15 horsepower pump within its sewage system — using force that Anderson believes to be in excess for the needs of the building — that could be causing the damage to the Cassopolis sewers lines, he said.

The village currently employs 42 different lift stations along its sewer system, with the largest of which being 25 horsepower ones, used to propel the water down the 10-mile stretch toward Dowagiac, Anderson said. By comparison, the jail’s 15 horsepower pump is only used to propel water 400 to 600 feet, he said.

“On the surface, that does not really make a lot of sense,” Anderson said.

An assessment of the sewer system from engineers with Wightman and Associates also concluded that the jail lift station could be causing the problems with the Cassopolis sewer line, Anderson said.

County officials, though, are not convinced the jail lift station is the culprit.

Installed at the jail in 1988, the pump has run smoothly since its installation in spite of never having major changes to its operation, said Cass County Administrator Karen Folks. Instead, the county believes that issues may stem from the age and deterioration of the village’s force main, which was installed in 1986.

In spite of that, county leaders have worked with Cassopolis ones to solve the problem, and would be amendable to taking the pump out of service if necessary, Folks said.

“If abandoning the lift station is a resolution to the problem, we would take a look at that,” Folks said. “It may ultimately be a cost savings measure for the county.”