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Sewers backed in Anchorage
Nearly 100 homes have to hook up

By Matt Batcheldor
The Courier-Journal

Nearly 100 households in Anchorage will have to hook up to a new sewer the city will build, the City Council decided in a special meeting last week after years of debate.

It will cost some residents more than $15,000 to hook up to the sewer and scrap their aging septic systems, which are leaching unsafe levels of solid waste into the city’s creeks, according to a city-hired consulting firm, FMSM Engineers.

Joe Roehrig, the city’s liaison to FMSM, has said it might take two years to design and install the sewers to serve 95 homes — generally east of Evergreen Road, north of La Grange Road and south of Osage Road.

The Anchorage decision ends what is likely the last big fight about sewers in Jefferson County, said Bud Schardein, executive director of the Metropolitan Sewer District, which has not been involved in the project. Most other densely populated areas have sewers.

The issue has divided the small city, which has long been resistant to change. Curbs and sidewalks are uncommon, and fewer than half of the city’s houses have sewers.

Over time, more people have come to support sewers. A show of hands at the meeting last Tuesday showed about 25 in support, five against.

Supporters say the sewers will be a permanent solution to the groundwater problem, and improve health for the whole area.

Locust Lane resident Rick Sweet said the stench of failing septic tanks wafts through the community.

“You can smell it walking down the road,” he said. “I know this is not healthy for me. My nose tells me that.”

But critics question whether just the tanks are causing the problem, pointing out that the city has never determined how many septic tanks aren’t working. They also question whether FMSM offered an unbiased opinion, given that the firm could make more money if the city chooses it to engineer the sewer project.

“I’m not against sewers,” said Joe Bilotta, who lives on Glenbrook Road. “I’m just partially against the process.”

FMSM engineer John Beyke said sewers are needed to preserve the health of the area. The firm’s study last month shows three water samples at different locations exceed healthy limits for E. coli bacteria. A sample at one of the three locations also exceeded water quality standards for fecal coliform.

Beyke said the area is poorly suited for septic systems. Lots in the area are smaller than elsewhere in Anchorage, the water table is high, rocks are close to the surface and the clay soil doesn’t absorb much.

Officials from MSD, the Louisville Metro Health Department and the state Division of Water said in interviews that the area is known for septic system failures. All say they support adding sewers.

Beyke said that when people say they’re against sewers, they often mean they just don’t want to pay for them.

Property owners would have to pay from $11,940 to $15,550 to bring sewers onto their lots, depending on its zoning. In general, owners with larger lots would pay the most.

They can pay the cost all at once or over 10 years in 120 equal monthly payments, at 4.75 percent interest.

A homeowner would also have to pay a plumber about $3,000 to connect their house to the sewer. After that, a sewage fee of about $40 every two months would be tacked onto Louisville Water Co. bills.

The city would pay about $600,000 to repave roads and re-establish ditches that would be torn up by the sewer work.

Beyke said his firm would seek a contract to engineer the sewers.

“So it’s a done deal,” Elm Road resident Jeff Tull said at the meeting.

Mayor Tommy Hewitt said FMSM would have to bid for the project and there’s no guarantee the city would choose its bid.

Tull questioned whether the waste problem is coming from upstream and asked why the city never determined how many septic tanks were causing problems. Hewitt said the city couldn’t go onto private property to check.

Beyke said the culprit is years of waste that has been deposited in septic systems, and it will take years for it to leach out.

Bilotta said he learned from the health department that there aren’t enough problems for it to get involved. “The health issues are not as big an issue as is being pushed,” he said.

Lee Lorch of Ridge Court, who said septic systems are “very effective” when they work, wanted to know if there were “cost-effective” alternatives to the sewers.

Brooks Alexander said the citizens’ sewer committee he led found none.

Hazelwood Road resident Sean O’Leary, who spent $8,600 on a system that treats sewage and pumps it into a pond, said he was initially against the sewers. But he “turned a 180″ after serving on the citizen’s sewer committee.

“It’s gross to live here,” he said. “It’s embarrassing. I’m ready to pay. … Let’s just do it.”