While Lexington's private negotiations with the state and the EPA over alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) continue, another Central Kentucky community has already started on the long road toward reparation.
The city of Winchester and Winchester Municipal Utilities (WMU) finalized their consent decree in April to address a complaint filed by the federal and state governments a year earlier, related to alleged CWA violations similar to Lexington's.
Winchester's consent decree calls for the elimination of 27 documented sanitary sewer overflows, or SSOs, which occur when wastewater escapes the sanitary sewer system at a location outside of the treatment plant, typically during peak wet weather conditions.
By comparison, Lexington has reported to the Division of Water 108 SSO events that occurred between January and April of this year due to mainline, or publicly owned, blockages or related to wet weather capacity, according to Charles Martin, director of the city's division of sanitary sewers.
Although it is still unclear when Lexington's negotiations will be concluded, Mayor Jim Newberry has already proposed some changes to help the city get its environmental house in order. In June, Newberry proposed a reorganization within city government that would create a Department of Environmental Quality to oversee sanitary sewers, storm water, solid waste and air and water quality management.
The reorganization was proposed as an effort to better use the city's resources and place more emphasis on Lexington's environment as a whole, and not specifically to address the more focused issues of storm water and sanitary sewers, said Don Kelly, the city's commissioner of public works.
However, the new department is expected to play a role in the city's future planning and development decisions and its overall efforts at improved regionalism, Kelly said.
"This is an effort to get ahead of the curve, instead of playing catch-up in future years," Kelly said.
The cost for Winchester
As a result of its consent decree, Winchester and WMU have committed to an estimated $35 million in capital improvements to eliminate all SSOs over the next 20 years, with more than 40 percent of that expense to be incurred in the next four years.
"Better than $15 million worth of capital improvements will be required by 2011," said Vernon Azevedo, general manager of Winchester Municipal Utilities.
The $35 million estimate is in addition to the city's $23 million wastewater treatment plant currently under construction. The new plant was already underway prior to the city's settlement with the EPA, but it is expected to alleviate some of the city's most serious SSO concerns, Azevedo said.
Under the consent decree, the city and WMU will develop Capacity Management, Operation and Maintenance, or CMOM, programs, for oversight of the system, at an estimated cost of roughly $2 million for their initial development and several million annually for continued implementation, Azevedo said.
The city and WMU will pay a $75,000 penalty in two installments, with $40,000 paid in May and the remaining $35,000 due in September 2008. Also, a supplemental environmental project with a total cost of $230,000 must be conducted as part of the city's restitution. For this project, WMU will be implementing a treatment system for downtown Winchester's major storm sewer conduit.
"It is going to require a significant investment of public dollars," said Winchester Mayor Ed Burtner, who was not in office when the consent decree was negotiated. "It's going to require the community as a whole to approach developmental opportunities differently, to think about development differently, and we've got a lot of work in front of us.
"It's a huge financial burden for Winchester and the customers of Winchester Municipal Utilities