The Upcoming EPA Visit

How's this for information:
In an interesting Courier Journal article from April of this year, the issues New Albany faces with the EPA regarding the sewage system in our city are explained in a little more detail than in recent newspaper coverage.
In this article, dated April 6, 2005, project manager Sam Lahanis predicted a finish date of April 27th for the $40 million dollar sewer-system expansion legally mandated in 2001 by the EPA. The original finish date was to be the end of March, but the city failed to meet that first deadline.
Delays were attributed to “…problems with the starters and circuit breakers for 3 pumps needed to send treated sewage to the Ohio River after unusually heavy rainstorms….”. A week prior to the story, a storm had once again overwhelmed the system because the pumps were not operational at the time.
Those storms produced the equivalent of sending 40 million gallons of sewage through the system per day.
The article quotes Rob Sartell, manager of the West 10th Street pumping station, as stating now that the 3 pumps were up and running he had confidence the system could handle up to 66 million gallons of sewage per day. Such capacity was a requirement of the EPA’s 2001 agreement with New Albany. That agreement also called for a 2004 finish date of the expansion, which obviously wasn’t met. This was after negotiations in the late 1990’s failed to produce any progress in fixing the failing sewage system of the city.
The City was given a new deadline for completion of April 30th, 2005 because the causes for the delay were said to be “…beyond the city’s control.” If anyone can shed some light on what those conditions were, please advise me of such. I am very interested in learning what caused these uncontrollable delays.
Before work began, the system was only able to handle 26.5 million gallons per day. So the upgrade of the system was to increase capacity by 40 million gallons per day, for a total capacity of 66 million gallons per day, by the end of April of this year.
However, as I remember it, we had a major rainstorm hit the city on Thursday, May 19th, that obviously overwhelmed the system once again. Every street in the inner city seemed to be flooded as I tried to make my way from the City Council meeting downtown back to my home at the eastern boundary of Floyd County. Manholes were overflowing and cars were seen with water up to the windows, many stranded in the middle of the streets, as people frantically tried to navigate the flood-waters in the city.
At that point I believe we all pretty much knew that the sewer system expansion had not been completed in the prior month as was previously reported.
Recently, the article of July 15th, states that EPA officials will be here next month to inspect “…the city’s recently completed sewage-system expansion.” This article noted that Mayor Garner and Greg Fifer, lawyer for the Sewer Board, were interviewed during the previous mornings ceremony celebrating the completion of the expansion. So I assume we missed the April deadline as well.
Another point that brings me to such a conclusion is the mention in the April article that Mr. Fifer was expecting to write a formal letter to the EPA that the expansion was complete and the 12-month test period of the system, which includes EPA oversight, was to start at the end of April. Now, the July 15th article reports that city officials hope to convince the EPA, during its August visit, to begin the one year test period as soon as possible.
In addition to this one year test period with the EPA, the city faces a six month demonstration period with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in order to lift state restrictions on new connections.
The April article stated the city was hoping that the city would be allowed to start connecting up to 3,200 new houses, or buildings that would create the equivalent amount of flow through the system, by the end of that month.
The July article echoes this hope for new connections to be allowed. Mayor Garner said it’s “crucial” that the EPA recognize the city’s new capabilities to handle sewage treatment at an adequate level in order to begin allowing new connections so the city can grow.
Both articles cite ongoing disputes with the EPA in terms of a promise made by the city to spend an additional minimum of $500K per year for additional needed repairs to the system. The EPS’s regional office declined to comment on these disputes citing possible litigation. Something Attorney Greg Fifer hopes can be avoided.
Both articles say that city engineers have developed a different list of repairs that they feel need to be made first. The city intends to ask the EPA for flexibility on this part of the agreement, to determine for themselves the order of priority for work that still must be undertaken.
What is not revealed in either article is how many years must the $500K be spent on sewer repairs, or if this money is already allocated. How much money is currently in the sewer fund? The fund the Mayor wanted to borrow $500K from in order to fix the city budgetary woes.
Former City Council member and current sewer board member Dick Bliss said it best in the conclusion of the July article;
“I’d say we struck out three times” in failing to fix the sewers, “and they just don’t trust us.”
Gee, doesn’t that sound familiar.