A proposal from Eric Green of Creston regarding connecting his home on 170th Street to the sanitary sewer extension along West Adams Street was approved with a vote of 5-2 during the Creston City Council meeting Tuesday.
“Initially, what got it started was (my wife and I) were planning our home and we looked at geothermal, ground-source heat,” said Green, new attorney with Kenyon & Nielsen PC in Creston. “I looked at the regulations and I had to have so much distance between on-site sewer treatment systems, and I could not sit my house on the lot and get the distance I needed from my neighbors’ sewer system to put in the wells.”
Green first brought a proposal to Creston City Council in July.
“I visited with Kevin (Kruse) and asked if they would entertain the idea of allowing me to run the service to my house into the city system mainly for environmental reasons,” Green said.
The council voted against the proposal at first, but after Green came up with a more efficient plan and returned to the council this week, the plan was approved. Two council members voted no: Rich Madison on ward 2 and Steve Wintermute, at-large representative.
Green and his wife, Elizabeth, will foot the bill for the project, estimated to cost $18,000.
The plan
“Last time we talked, there were a lot of unknowns,” Green said during the Tuesday meeting. “I think we talked about a project that was way bigger than maybe what the city and that area out there is ready for. ... But, we came up with what we think is a better option – just a single service from my house.”
Green worked with his builder, American Homes By Dave Long; Union County Environmental Health Specialist Amanda Husband; Sewer Contractor Monte Starlin and Creston city employees to come up with a new plan because the first plan had council members concerned about the size of the project and boring under Cottonwood Road.
The new plan is to install a single, 4-inch service line connecting the Greens’ house to the sewer main east of Cottonwood Road. The Greens will own the line and restrict it to their private use.
The service line will run along the south side of Adams and 170th streets from the Greens’ house until it crosses Adams Street to tie into the 8-inch main. The service line will be 6 inches under Adams Street, per the city’s request. This eliminates the need to both bore under Cottonwood Road and tie directly into a manhole at that location.
The entire project will be bored, except for the pits needed to pull and push pipe. This means minimal disturbance to city and county rights-of-way, Green said.
Since the Greens’ residence is served with city water, billing can be tied to water usage just as it is for other residential users, Green said. Along with a monthly rate, Green proposed a one-time hookup fee of $1,000 to connect to the city’s eight-inch main.
“I know we were talking a little bit more (money) last time when I was talking about cutting into the manhole,” Green said. “I figure $1,000 seems like a fair connection fee ... hooking into just the 8-inch line versus punching into the manhole.”
After Green talked to Union County Engineer Steve Akes, his only major concern was putting the right-of-way back the way it was before.
“I said, ‘No problem because a large part of it’s my yard,’” Green said.
Reactions
“Part of my concern (is) ... here, you and others may want city services but you aren’t willing to pay what other property owners in the city limits have to pay,” Madison said.
Green said he understood Madison’s concern but mentioned he and his wife do own commercial property in town.
“(With) my 40-unit self storage facility ... we pay about $5,400 a year in taxes that way. They don’t use a whole lot of sewer, but we gladly pay that,” Green said. “We’re going to be here a long time doing business. Not that that is the same as building a house in city limits, but I would ask you to take that into a little bit of consideration that we do pay some taxes.”
Wintermute said he is worried about more people a few months from now wanting to do the same thing. Kruse said additional projects of this nature likely wouldn’t be an issue.
Environmental reasoning
Green said the environmental aspect was the biggest motivator in pursuing the project given the location of their home on 170th Street uphill from McKinley Lake.
“I figured I would try to pump into a treatment system if I could, even though it was going to cost me a little bit more,” Green said. “Knowing the city wants to do a lot of work around the lake – fixing the road, the new bridge ... I just thought if we were willing to pay to run a service line down and connect into a sewage treatment system, that would be better overall down the road.”
The new plan is endorsed by Husband as the best choice environmentally. She had expressed concerns about another on-site treatment system upstream from McKinley Lake and encouraged an agreement that would allow the Greens to tie into the city sewage treatment system.
“My concern is if we can limit or avoid those discharging systems above that lake would be ideal,” Husband said during the meeting. “I know it’s not a great setup out there, and unfortunately probably not going about from the get-go in the right way having that many homes congregated like a city on all-private sewage system. But, here we are. We’re stuck with what we’ve got. And, if we can give him a really good option to go to city sewer and not have the risk of environmental health damage, I think it’s worth considering.”
“That site out there is not really conducive to an on-site system just because of the way it’s sitting,” Long said. “The reason we decided to go on the south side is because the north side has a 2-inch sewer line from out west ... so we opted to bore the south side (because) it would be hard to bore that north side. Plus, we’d be dealing with going under Cottonwood.”
In other Creston City Council news:
• The council approved a resolution to special-assess mowing nuisance abatements due to non-payment by property owners.
• The council approved a resolution to special-assess repair fees due to non-payment by property owners.
• The council approved a plan proposed by Marion James regarding the transfer of Abell Street and Wyoming Avenue extension to the city of Creston.
• The council approved a request by John Rutz to keep livestock in city limits.
• The council began to discuss, per the request of Wintermute, a possibility of no parking on North Elm Street from Summit to Townline streets due to the narrowness of the road there. Council members brought up concerns about other narrow roads and decided to think on the issue and discuss it at a further meeting.