By Brenna Angel
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wuky/local-wuky-955550.mp3
LEXINGTON, Ky. – For the past couple of years, the Lexington Department of Environmental Quality has been combing the city's sewer system, checking for leaks and busted pipes, and measuring capacity levels. You may have seen crews doing smoke testing in your neighborhood or found that the buried manhole in your yard was raised.
Now city officials are ready to report their findings to the public, and they're warning it will take several more years to give Lexington's sanitary sewer system the good overhaul it needs.
Walt Gaffield can tell you about the city's sewer woes. The Lexington resident is a former president of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council, a group that joined in the Federal EPA's lawsuit against city government for violating the Clean Water Act.
"You know we've had problems with Wolf Run Creek for years, many, many years with sewage getting into people's basements. There was even an overflowing manhole in a city park."
The Wolf Run Watershed is only part of the problem. Charles Martin, Director of the Lexington Division of Water Quality, says because of the consent decree between the city and the EPA, officials started a massive sanitary sewer assessment.
"The sewers that we inspected, we found numerous defects, not only as far as the public side of the system, but also the private side of the system."
Martin says many Lexington pipes are some 80 years old, and have been neglected for too long. He now has data ready on the worst parts of the system -- the West Hickman, East Hickman, and Wolf Run watersheds -- and will present that information at three public meetings this month before sending it on to the EPA in April.
Martin says the next big hurdle is developing a remedial measures plan.
"The question that we have for the community by and large is when we fix these things, how big do we make it? You can make the pipes big enough to be able to convey these two-year, 24-hour storms, or three inches of rain, or you can make it handle a much larger rain event."
The Urban County Council has already raised the sanitary sewer fee to generate money for the assessments and some improvements currently underway. But Martin says another fee increase will be necessary to fully fund all the projects over the next decade.
"EPA I don't think is going to allow us the latitude to say well we're going to do the plan that's the cheapest. Because it still comes back to what the law says in the Clean Water Act is that you can't discharge raw sewage into streams."
The remedial measures plan is due in October, and Martin says it's important to get as much input as possible from Lexington residents. The Division of Water Quality's first public meeting is Monday, March 7. Others are scheduled for the two following Mondays.
Walt Gaffield plans to go to one of the events and get an update on the process he helped start.
"So far, I think they're really making an effort. And they're going to be legally obligated to meet the requirements of the EPA and the consent decree. I think they're doing the best with what they have."
"We're all this together," says Martin. "There may be a lot of discussion about it's this person's fault or it's that group's fault. It's a community issue that we've got to lock our arms together and solve together."
Martin says the city is focused on meeting the federal government's deadlines so it won't be assessed any more fines, and so residents don't have to worry about sewage overflows when it rains.
Public Meetings
* Monday, March 7 at 6 p.m.
Fayette County Extension Office at 1140 Red Mile Place
* Monday, March 14 at 6 p.m.
Victory Baptist Church at 2261 Armstrong Mill Road
* Monday, March 21 at 6 p.m.
Tates Creek Christian Church at 3150 Tates Creek Road