"At the top of Mayor Jim Newberry's agenda presented during his first State of the Merged Government address was a pending lawsuit by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over violations of the Clean Water Act. This was no surprise to many neighborhoods that have been dealing for years with flooded basements containing raw sewage, over flowing manholes, and flooded streets, all the result of inadequate and deteriorating infrastructure. The result: impaired streams that violate the quality of life and the Clean Water Act. Specifically, the mayor warned residents to be prepared for an increase in the city's sewer fees to fund repair work as designated by the EPA.
Every day, more than 40 million gallons of wastewater moves through Lexington's sanitary sewer system, cycling through the treatment plants and back into the community water supply. The government-owned sanitary sewer systems include 79 pump stations and approximately 1,300 miles of sewer lines.
The Division of Sanitary Sewers maintains and operates two large wastewater treatment plants: Town Branch, off Old Frankfort Pike in Fayette County, and West Hickman, on Ashgrove Pike in Jessamine County. In 2002, Lexington Fayette Urban County Government and the Jessamine South Elkhorn Water District entered into a contractual arrangement to take sewage from Northern Jessamine County residential and commercial developments.
Citizens of Fayette County pay a user charge on water consumption as an approximation of sewer use into the facility. Kentucky American Water Company provides this amount based upon water meter readings. This only applies to water discharged into the sewer system. According to the LFUCG Web site, the rates are broken into three tiers: Schedule A (single family homes), Schedule B (commercial, retail, and industrial facilities) and Schedule C (multi-unit apartments, town home and condominium complexes, trailer parks and duplexes). Hotels, motels, and boarding houses are not eligible for Schedule A or Schedule C rates. For example, single-family units are charged a rate of $1.78 per 100 cubic feet for the first 400 cubic feet of water used per month and then a rate of $2.16 per 100 cubic feet in excess of 400 cubic feet per month.
The last sewer user fee was increased by 20 percent in July of 2002 and had not been increased since 1992. The average amount of money generated during the period of 1999-2002 was $19.9 million in user fee revenue, and the average money generated during the period of 2003-2005 was $24 million. According to Charlie Martin, director of the Division of Sanitary Sewers, LFUCG, "Fiscal year 2003 funded a $22.8 million bond project that had 16 specific rehabilitation projects that targeted specific sanitary sewer overflows identified in the 2001 Sanitary Sewer Overflow Plan. All but one project is complete; most came in under budget. The contingency dollars remaining will be used for yet-to-be-determined projects."
The sanitary sewer fund is an enterprise fund, meaning the money can only be spent on administration, operations, maintenance of the sanitary sewer system including the treatment plant (any other capital expenditures with regard to the treatment plant) and cleaning and maintenance of transmission lines.
The four major, yet to be constructed projects have significant price tags: $4.1 million for the North Elkhorn diversion pump station; $10.8 million for the North Elkhorn diversion pipeline; $3.1 million for the South Elkhorn pump station upgrade; and $11.6 million for the South Elkhorn pipeline. The total costs of new sanitary sewer construction projects that have yet to be completed will exceed $29 million.
"The problems are not unique to Lexington," Martin said. "Cincinnati, northern Kentucky, Louisville, Frankfort, Winchester, Knoxville and many others have been subject to recent enforcement action. Like them, we'll do what needs to be done."
The EPA, via the federal Clean Water Act, is now mandating large and medium- sized cities like Lexington to take steps to reduce quantity of stormwater runoff. Stormwater runoff is water from rain or melted snow that is not absorbed by land and flows to the nearest stream. Pollutants such as pesticides, oil from parking lots, pet waste and soaps from car washing all find their way into streams. Runoff not only pollutes but also erodes stream banks, which causes sediment buildup. Not only quality, but also quantity of stormwater is a concern. Uncontrolled water runoff of hard surfaces dramatically increases the velocity of the water flow, causing developed areas to experience flooding and resulting in higher costs to the public and devastating effects to wildlife.
A recurring source of funding that has been gaining acceptance and momentum in many cities trying to mitigate the problems associated with the quality and quantity of stormwater is a stormwater utility fee. This fee generates a dedicated source of funding that is used for repair, maintenance and upgrading of existing storm drain systems, updating of flood control measures, development of drainage plans, flood control measures, water quality programs, and in some cases, major capital improvements. The Priority Projects Master List, presented to the mayor and council in November 2005, listed 100 projects at an estimated cost of $117,428,000.
The more publicly accepted stormwater utility fees are based on a percentage of developed impervious surfaces or hard areas that do not allow rainwater to be absorbed by the ground, including driveways, parking lots and rooftops that contribute to the overall stormwater problem. In this instance, no one is excluded from the process. Everyone pays his or her share based upon a calculation of the impervious surface of the parcel. It is more equitably based, not a tax and includes nonprofit organizations such as churches, schools, and hospitals that are typically property tax exempt but have large surface area. In other words, each of us will be paying to mitigate the problems of stormwater to the extent that we contribute to the problem.
In 2003, Butler County, Ohio, formed a Storm Water District for the purpose of complying with the new, unfunded EPA water quality guidelines that went into effect in March 2003. According to Butler County's Stormwater District Web site, they measured property utilizing an Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU). The ERU was determined by measuring the impervious surface area from a random sample of single family residential properties located within Butler County, along with aerial photography, GIS data, and computer mapping software. For example, owners of single-family residential, agricultural, vacant or undeveloped proprieties are charged a semi-annual rate fee based on an average amount of impervious surface area, which was calculated to be around 4,000 square feet. Non-residential owners are charged based on the number of ERU's of hard surface on their property. For example, if a commercial property has three times as much hard surface area as the average residence (12,000 square feet, or 3 ERUs), its stormwater charge would be three times the residential rate.
Lexington residents and businesses pay a fee for the amount of water they use and the amount of wastewater they discharge. Streams lead to rivers, which is the number one source of drinking water for most communities. When water treatment costs go up, so does the price of drinking water. As users, we all contribute to the problem. Now its time to examine whether we will contribute to the solution.
"