Sewage Ejection pump? Sump pump? What am I seeing? What's happening?

Question

Yesterday I was cleaning out someone's crawl space in their basement. The crawls space is located right next to the sump pump and upon cleaning it out I noticed two square holes on opposite sides. After I finished cleaning it suddenly the sump pump started running(or at least I think it was the sump pump) and the crawl space began filling up with water out of one of the holes in the wall. Is this normal? Now I have a lake in a crawl space? Is it a sewage ejection basin or something? What is it and why is it?

Answer 1

Something is wrong.
A sewage ejection pump should never be exposed to the air because of the smell and health hazzards. In other ways it is like a sump pump.
A sump pump is one that has automatic switching and is located in a place that can collect water (the sump) and therefore is the lowest point in the area. Because mechanical equipment does not like to run dry and does like running for a while instead of pulsing on and off, the switching is arranged so that the water builds up to a certain depth (say a foot) and the switch comes on and the pump runs until it lowers to water, say to 3", and then shuts off.
A sewage ejection pump is used when a house/building has to be built below the sewage/septic tank system.