Lexington Will Pay $250 Million to Fix Sewers, Pay $425,000 Fine

By Michelle Ku, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

Feb. 19–Lexington will spend more than $250 million to fix long-running problems with its sanitary and storm sewer systems that cause untreated sewage to overflow pump stations and manholes during periods of rain.

The city also will pay a $425,000 fine levied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, create a storm water fee and dramatically increase the sanitary sewer user fee paid by Lexington residents.

Over the next dozen years, the city will be required to eliminate all sewage overflows, complete a system-wide assessment of the sewer system and turn the Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plant in southeast Fayette County into a pump station.

Those provisions are part of a settlement agreement between the city and the EPA over violations of the Clean Water Act. The agreement was approved by the Urban County Council by a unanimous vote Tuesday after a 12-minute closed session. There was no discussion before the vote in open session.

Although the council has approved the negotiated settlement, called a consent decree, it won’t become final until after a public comment period, and approval by a federal judge. It could take a few months for the consent decree to take effect.

The EPA sued Lexington in November 2006 over long-running problems with the city’s sanitary and storm water systems. The main problem: sewage flowing out of pump stations and manholes during storms eventually makes its way into Kentucky creeks and streams.

The city has already taken the initial steps to begin several of the projects being mandated by the EPA.

For example, the city has begun to raise the money to pay for the projects. The council is poised to approve a sewer user fee increase on Thursday that would essentially double the fee over the next two years.

That money would be used to pay for $130 million in capital improvements over the next four years. The improvements include replacing the North Elkhorn and South Elkhorn pump stations and building a new main sewer line for each of those stations, which are two of the most troublesome of some 75 the city operates.

Both of those projects are part of the EPA’s project list of required improvements.

Projects mandated by the EPA include:

– Eliminating all sanitary sewer overflows in the pipe system and at the Town Branch and West Hickman treatment plants over the next dozen years.

– Installing a backup power source at both treatment plants.

– Spending more than $36 million to repair four sanitary sewer pump stations.

– Eliminating Blue Sky with a pump station at an estimated cost of $2 million.

– Conducting a system-wide assessment at an estimated cost of $9.5 million. The assessment will determine whether additional repairs are needed. The additional repairs must be approved by the EPA.

– Completing a system capacity assessment at an estimated cost of $2 million.

– Completing a self-assessment of every sanitary sewer operation and developing various plans including an overflow response plan, gravity plan preventative maintenance program and pump station operation plan for outages. The development and implementation of the plans should have an estimated annual budget of $16 million.

Mayor Jim Newberry will speak about the agreement with the EPA at 5:30 in a live speech carried on GTV-3.

For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Herald-Leader.

Reach Michelle Ku at (859) 231-1335 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 1335.

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

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