Politics & Government

Private Lateral Project Killed By Village Board

Responding to public outcry, Whitefish Bay trustees canceled their plans to line 326 sanitary sewer laterals on the south end of the village.

After hearing impassioned testimony from residents, Whitefish Bay trustees on Monday night reversed course and killed a private lateral lining project that would have assessed homeowners thousands of dollars.

Most of the Whitefish Bay trustees said they came to the crowded public meeting with the intention of approving the $1.6 million contract to line 326 private sanitary sewer laterals on the southern end of the village.

After hearing more than an hour of resident opposition to the lateral assessments ranging in cost from $2,000 to $7,000, Village President Julie Siegel shocked the board room by making a motion to kill the project. 

Siegel said she was swayed by resident concerns about the project's costs and benefits – as well as concerns about increased ground water created by sealed sanitary laterals. Even though she voted against the project, Siegel emphasized that private property is not off limits in future sewer improvement projects.

"This wasn't the right time and the right project, and I think you've convinced everyone on the board of that this evening," she told the audience. "But not for the reason that property owners don't need to put some skin in the game and take care of their own property."

Siegel said she was particularly swayed by Cumberland Boulevard resident Jon Isaacson, who said the board should be pursuing larger sources of inflow, such as disconnecting downspouts and foundation drains from the sanitary sewer system. A geological engineer by trade, Isaacson argued that leaky laterals have a relatively small impact on basement backups, because of the amount of time it takes for rain water to reach the underground laterals.

"By the time the inflow starts, the storm's over," he said. "...You (the board) are going with an extraordinary amount of money after a very small amount of water that's going to come after the storm."

Downspouts and sump pumps

Residents and trustees alike pushed the village to move forward with its downspout disconnection program, which will use dye water testing to determine which of the village's 300 connected downspouts are sending rain water into the sanitary sewer system. Of the 300 downspouts connected to the ground, 20 are in Basin 1203. 

Even though the number of connected downspouts is small, Trustee Carl Fuda said the benefits of disconnecting them is well worth the effort.

"Even 10 direct downspout lines into the sanitary system will have more impact than 100 indirect  – read private lateral leaks – into the sanitary system," he said. "My belief is it's time to take a time out, complete what we have approved, disconnect downspouts and recalibrate."

Manholes and main lines

Fuda said the Village Board got the most "bang for its buck" on June 3, when it authorized a $664,000 contract to reconstruct 25 manholes, line 8,000 lineal feet of sanitary sewer main and rehab other aging sanitary sewer facilities in Basin 1203.

Village engineers said that work will reduce the amount of rain water going into the sanitary sewers of Basin 1203 by 18 percent – which is more than halfway to the 31 percent reduction required by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, which has labeled Basin 1203 a broken sewer shed.

Trustee Jay Miller agreed that the village should wait to see the effects of the manhole/main project – as well as the Cahill storm water retention basin and the disconnection from Shorewood sewers – before asking homeowners to make a significant investment on their private lateral.

Not out of the woods yet

The private lateral project was just one piece of a 15-year, $105 million capital improvement plan aimed at improving Whitefish Bay's sewer infrastructure, most of which has been neglected for 80 years.

Trustees Gary Davis and Richard Foster, both of whose houses were flooded in 2010, said they have fresh memories of the damage caused by outdated infrastructure and were less enthusiastic about rejecting the lateral lining project. 

"I was here three years ago, and for weeks we were hammered by people telling us to stop the flooding," Foster said. "We've been busting our butts for three years to come up with a plan."

Davis, whose house sustained $80,0000 in damage, said Whitefish Bay's sewer problems are far from solved, and he would like to continue talking about inflow and infiltration issues.

"It's not that we don't need to take action, because people we do. Just maybe not this action at this time," Davis said. "I don't want us to stop tonight, I want us to redirect and rethink." 

The Village Board voted in March to borrow money for the lateral lining project, and Village Engineer Dan Naze said those funds need to be used within two years. He said he's not sure if that money will be redirected to the downspout disconnection program, or if a separate funding mechanism will be developed for the downspout project.

While it's unclear what will be done with the borrowed money, both trustees and village engineers seem to have reached a consensus that the village is not prepared to mandate the installation of sump pumps at this time. The extra rain water generated by all those extra sump pumps would overwhelm the village's deficient storm water infrastructure and create streams of water down some village streets, Naze said.

Naze said he will present recommendations for next year's capital improvement projects to the board in August.


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