Residents Sound Off on Private Lateral Project

Nearly 100 Whitefish Bay residents packed into Village Hall Tuesday night, and most of them were upset about the thousands of dollars they are being assessed to have their private sanitary sewer lateral lined.

The 326 households are being assessed $2,000 to $7,000 for a lateral rehabilitation project on the southern end of the village in Sanitary Sewer Basin 1203 – which the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District has identified as a broken sewer shed. 

That area was also among the hardest hit by flooding in 2010.

Some residents, like Woodburn Street resident Tom Scheer, said he has spent roughly $13,000 on flood-related expenses, so he does not think the village should be assessing him another $3,700 at this time. 

Scheer – and many others at the meeting – said the entire village should be asked to contribute to the lateral rehabilitation project – or that the lateral lining project should start with households at the north end of the village.

“You should start at the top of the hill where the water is coming from,” Scheer said. “Instead you’re starting with the people that have gone through Hell. This is just not fair.”

The lateral lining project would fix 326 sanitary sewer laterals, which are meant to carry waste water, but due to cracks and root intrusions, are becoming overburdened by rain water coming in through the cracks. 

Many of the private laterals were designed 80 years ago, so they are made of clay and have joints every three to four feet. Through this village project, those disjointed laterals will be lined with a form-fitted felt sleeve soaked in resin, creating a sturdy seamless pipe that blocks out rain water.

The village is forced to take on this project and many other sewer projects because much of the village's infrastructure is 80 years old, said Assistant Village Engineer Aaron Jahncke.

Flashback to 2010

The lateral lining project was first conceived two to three years ago, when trustees decided that taxpayers should not have to pay for other home's laterals because they are private property. Trustees also didn't want to punish residents who have paid for their own lateral replacement.

The committee and Village Board also agreed at that time to finance the project up-front, and allow residents to pay on a seven-year payment plan. That payment plan window has now been extended to 10 years.

Only a handful of interested residents attended those meetings in the past, but the steep assessment bill in the mail has recently caught the attention of those affected residents.

“If I had known three years ago that we were all going to pay 100 percent of the cost...I would have been here,” said Hollywood Avenue resident Jeff Cole.

Cole was one of about 25 Hollywood Avenue residents at last night's meeting. The Hollywood Avenue project – which includes private lateral rehabilitation and street reconstruction – is still being engineered and is not scheduled to take place until next summer.

Sewer stress

In addition to cost concerns, residents also voiced concerns with the lateral lining program failing. Jerome Flogel, from MMSD, told people at the meeting that – of the 3,000 laterals lined in the Milwaukee area with this technology – only 0.5 percent have failed. Those failures were caused by improper installation, he said.

Other residents were concerned whether the first phase of the village-wide lateral improvement program will stop after their basin is completed. Others were concerned that the newly-improved sanitary sewer laterals will create more storm water in the basin.

Some residents said the village should have used MMSD funding to pay for the private lateral lining. However, Jahncke explained that the village is only on track to receive $1.5 million in MMSD reimbursement, which wouldn't even cover the $2.2 million cost for the village to televise and locate every private lateral in the village. 

On Monday, the Village Board will vote on the final assessment resolution and a contract with the lining company, LMK Technologies.