City Public Works had to make a $430,000 emergency purchase after a sludge pump stopped working and then the backup pump also failed.
Brent Goldberg, city chief financial officer, said the failure was at station #1.
He said after the two failures occurred, the sludge was routed to station #2. However, it had to pump far beyond its capacity.
Mr. Goldberg said, in order to prevent waste from having to be dumped into the Tennessee River with the overuse of the station #2 pump, it was necessary on May 31 to acquire two progressive cavity pumps and grinders for station #1.