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City Breaks Ground On New Sanitary Sewer Pump Station

By Alan Lytle

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wuky/local-wuky-832800.mp3

Lexington, KY – Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry says improving the water quality in the city's creeks and streams will take time, work, and a lot of money. A major step in that direction took place Tuesday.

"Today we broke ground on a new sanitary sewage pump station. The South Elkhorn Pump Station has been one that has generated more sewage overflows in recent years than anyplace else in our sanitary sewer system. (And) that means whenever we have a hard rain, raw sewage ends up getting into South Elkhorn Creek and on downstream from there".

The new station on Bowman's Mill Road, comes with a price tag of 15 million dollars One point eighteen million of it will be paid for through a federal earmark secured by Kentucky Congressman Ben Chandler. In 2006 the Federal Environmental Protection Agency filed a lawsuit against the city for numerous violations of the Clean Water Act. The new pump station is a major component of a settlement agreement between Lexington and the EPA.