Some complaints made by residents led the Pearl River County Utility Authority to a collection of four homes that were incorrectly hooked up to the waste water system.

The four homes are located on South Haugh Avenue and for some reason, instead of having their sewage hooked up to the city sewage system, it was tied into the storm water system, which is not equipped to handle sewage.

Gary Clark, who has lived in one of the four homes for the past two years said he noticed the problem recently when it appeared sewage was backing up in his home.

“It never did come into the house or anything but you could tell it was getting ready to,” Clark said.

Clark said he also noticed a sewage smell coming from the storm drain outside his home and went so far as to use grass clippings to cover the drain and keep the smell down.

Utility Authority Operations Manager Cliff Diamond said the complaints by the residents in the area prompted the Utility Authority to check it out, and when they ran some water down the sewer collection line to look for a clog, instead of the water disappearing down the sewer line or backing up, the workers noticed it was going down the storm drain.

“Obviously we don’t want sewage going down the storm system,” Diamond said. “I don’t know how on Earth it was connected like that.”

To fix the problem the Utility Authority sent out a crew on Wednesday to dig up the line and connect it to where it is supposed to go. Diamond said that work was expected to be complete by Wednesday afternoon.