Sludge Watch ==> Diamond ring recovered from the sewers

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Working in sludge has some unusual perks.

Touring a sewage treatment plant near Santa Barbara, workers reported 
finding as much as $1000 per day in cash in the 'rags' machine.  Staff more 
routinely recover $20 - $30 per day in bills.  They think the big money 
might have been flushed down the loo during drug busts.

Coins, rings, and jewellery come in the grit from the sewer sucking 
equipment.

One staffer had three diamond rings from only 4 months at the plant.

Senior staff had serious jewellery made from the many rings and pieces of 
jewellery recovered from the sewer.
..........................................................

Sewage workers recover 98-year-old Olympia woman's wedding ring
By The Associated Press


OLYMPIA — It was a messy job, but two municipal employees painstakingly 
searched a sewage line and recovered a wedding ring.

The effort began after the Public Works Department in the state capital got 
a letter from Alma F. Coate-Wilson, 98, who wrote that she had accidentally 
flushed her $8,000, 1.6-carat wedding ring down the toilet in the middle of 
the night two months ago.

Gary Franks, a public works supervisor, said the department rarely gets such 
requests and usually doesn't have the time to grant them but decided to try 
this time because of the circumstances.

Maintenance workers Bill Davis and Jean Wright started by sending a type of 
camera through the sewer line. When that didn't work, they flushed the main 
line, blocking solids using pea gravel. Finally, they went through the 
solids with a garden hose and found the ring.

Four city employees returned it to Coate-Wilson this week.

"I was the happiest girl in the world," Coate-Wilson told The Olympian 
newspaper.

"I was floored," she said. "I knew it was forever."

Coate-Wilson, a retired teacher, said she was given the ring 39 years ago by 
Gilbert Coate, to whom she was married for 23 years.

"Until my death, I wanted to have it (the ring), of course," she said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003721818_webring25m.html