A “significant volume” untreated sewage spilled into Clear Creek and the Sacramento River on Sunday after a power outage caused pumps at the city’s nearby sewage plant to shut down, city of Redding officials said Thursday.

A storm with high winds knocked out power in the area of the Clear Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in south Redding after 11 p.m. Sunday night, city officials said.

A back-up generator kicked on after the power went out, but a safety device on the pumps kept them from turning on. A wastewater treatment plant official went to the plant and manually turned the pumps back on about 30 minutes later, officials said.

City officials said they did not know how much sewage was released into the creek, which flows into the Sacramento River.

“The high winds began an unfortunate series of events that led to a significant sewer discharge into our local waterways. Our team worked very quickly to mitigate the impacts of the power outage and discharge. We will continue to look for ways to improve the system to help prevent issues like this from happening in the future,” Josh Vandiver, the city’s wastewater utility manager, said in a statement.

City officials said they haven’t seen any negative effects from the spill. The California Office of Emergency Services and the State Water Resources Control Board were also notified of the incident and are checking for any effects from the spill.

The city gets some drinking water from the Sacramento River, but at pump stations farther to the north.

“The Sacramento River is not a drinking water source for communities immediately south of Redding,” the city said.

Wastewater officials also said they are working on “programming changes” to prevent a similar incident from happening again.

Reporter Damon Arthur welcomes story tips at 530-338-8834, by email at damon.arthur@redding.com and on Twitter at @damonarthur_RS. Help local journalism thrive by subscribing today!

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Untreated sewage spills into Clear Creek in Redding after power outage