Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The City Council has approved an agreement for use by Public Works and property owners to create easements that will allow the city to use state loan funds to pay for lateral sewer line repairs to reduce inflow and infiltration.
Inflow and infiltration (I&I) is water that leaks into the city’s sewer system through cracked and deteriorating pipes or through cross connections to storm systems. The extra water during heavy rain can overload the city’s wastewater treatment plant, forcing bypasses of untreated wastewater into the river.
The city is working under an agreement with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to reduce I&I flows by 2010. As part of the process, the DEQ has provided $6 million in loans to Sweet Home for I&I reduction projects.
The city has spent most of that on two projects and the designs for a third, Public Works Director Mike Adams said, and the city is in the process of requesting an additional $4 million to pay construction costs for the third project.
The DEQ will not allow the city to work on private sewer laterals with the loan money, Adams said. The money may only be used where the city has “legal control” over the lines.
Sewer laterals are privately owned by property owners, and they are the responsibility of the owners, Adams said. With such a big I&I problem, more than half of it in private laterals, the city has been seeking ways to fix the laterals.
The solution was to create easements along private sewer laterals.
The DEQ has agreed that easements are sufficient to show “legal control,” Adams said.
The easement agreements will allow an easement for five feet on either side of a sewer lateral for inspection, repair, installation, relocation and replacement and the use of DEQ loan funds to do it. It will ensure that the city will make a reasonable effort to return the property to its previous condition, prior to construction.
It also will require property owners, as is the case without an agreement, to maintain full responsibility for operation, maintenance and eventual replacement of laterals.
Property owners are not required to grant the easement, Adams said. The city just will not replace or repair those laterals as part of this project.
“We could come back at some point and do an investigation of the lateral itself, and if there’s nothing wrong, they’re golden,” Adams said. “But if there is something wrong with the lateral, then we can say we gave you an opportunity and you didn’t take it.”
At some point in the future, the owners of leaky laterals causing I&I may be required to fix them, he said. The city’s proposal for easements will allow the city to fix those laterals.
Right now, the city is trying to take a system-wide approach to I&I, Adams said. That means the city is fixing main lines and laterals within its proposed project areas.
The city is finalizing those project areas now and will send the project to bid when funding is available. Which areas will actually be included in the project will depend on the bids. The project is divided into sections and prioritized so project areas can be removed from the overall project if funding falls short.
Proposed project areas include Main Street between Ninth and 22nd avenues; Nandina Street, between Ninth and 15th avenues; Oak Terrace, 10th Avenue and Old Holley Road, with some side streets; First through Fifth avenue north of highway 228 and cross streets; Highway 228 from Main Street to the west of First Avenue, along with cross streets; and Osage and Nandina streets in the Strawberry Heights area.
“The likelihood of getting them all is probably slim to none,” Adams said. “These are general areas. I’m going to send notices to all the property owners in these areas.”