- The final phase of a large sewer project in central Boone County was approved last month by SD1, but it would require the expropriation of a local naturalist’s property
- The project is part of a larger effort to address sewer overflows in SD1’s service area
- The land owner is seeking a review from the Kentucky Supreme Court to prevent SD1 from taking her land, which she planned to turn into a nature preserve
CORRECTION: The original version of this story misidentified an agency that had provided funding for the sewer project. The relevant lines have been corrected.–LINK nky editorial, Aug. 27, 2026.
A Boone County naturalist’s attempt to prevent Sanitation District 1 from taking her land for a massive sewer project could end up before the Kentucky Supreme Court.
The legal battle focuses on SD1’s use of eminent domain, wherein a government agency takes private property for a public use in exchange for compensation, to expropriate chunks of land it needs for the sewer construction. The land belongs to Gayle Pille, a naturalist and writer who has contributed to, and even led, various environmental projects in the region over the last 35 years.
“I love nature, I love wildlife, and this cuts right through my soul,” Pille said. “This cuts just right in the heart.”
Now, after two years of legal battles, Pille is hoping the Kentucky Supreme Court will take up her case. The fight demonstrates the tensions that can arise when issues of public infrastructure, environmental risk and private economic expansion meet. If the state’s highest court ever takes the case up, it could set a precedent for how government agencies employ eminent domain in the future.
The master plan
Pille owns about 45 acres of land in central Boone County. The property contains a section of Woolper Creek, a large tributary of the Ohio River, which will run adjacent to the new sewer project. Pille purchased the land, she said, to protect the watershed and local wildlife. She hoped to bequeath it to the Boone Conservancy as a nature preserve when she dies.
Pille began contacting SD1 and its leadership in 2021 when she first heard about the potential for a sewer project in the central county, at first pointing out that many of the residents in that area relied on septic tanks and had no need for sewers. She also elaborated on what she hoped to accomplish with the land.
“I bought the property because it was mostly wooded with this beautiful stream running through it, however parts of the stream were badly impacted by livestock,” Pille writes in a 2021 letter to the SD1 Board of Directors. “I worked hard, planting well over 1,000 trees, native grasses and wildflowers, native shrubs and River Cane to restore the riparian habitat. The stream, as it runs through my property and others, is absolutely beautiful. I don’t want to see that damaged in any way.”
SD1 is under a federal mandate to improve waste water infrastructure in its service area. Many of the region’s sewer networks use old combined sewer systems, which convey both waste water and storm water in the same system. This can lead to flooding. Many of SD1’s projects focus on addressing this problem.
The agency has been considering ways to address sewer overflow in central Boone County since at least 2017. A report from that year pitched a handful of alternatives for addressing sewer overflow, one of which resembles the current sewer plan. Another alternative considers upgrading SD1’s Bullittsville Pumping Station to better handle overflows, a plan that was elaborated upon in the agency’s subsequent 2021 Updated Watershed Plan.
The Bullittsville Pumping Station upgrades were eventually discarded, however. This is notable because the Bullittsville Pumping Station upgrade alternative would have left Pille’s land untouched while still satisfying the federal decree. This would later become a point of contention in the legal fight.
The plan SD1 eventually went with has been dubbed the Central Boone County Sewer Master Plan. The fourth and likely final construction phase of the master plan project was approved just last month at the SD1 Board of Directors meeting on July 21. The phase approved in July is the northernmost phase of the project and measures about 17,250 linear feet, according to board memos.
Phases 2 and 3 of the project are already under construction, and the first phase has been sent out to bid with construction scheduled to begin in October. Documents from SD1 put the most up-to-date projected cost for the entire project at just under $40 million.
Once complete, the master plan project will “relieve future capacity pressures on existing pump stations by re-directing flows from Dry Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant (in Villa Hills) to Western Regional Water Reclamation Facility (in Petersburg) while also supporting Boone County’s growth priority areas,” according to a memo presented to the board before last month’s meeting.
“With the four phases, we will eliminate 1.2 million gallons of sanitary sewer overflow,” said SD1 Project Manager Craig Frye.
It’s clear from the text of Pille’s petition to the Supreme Court, however, that she suspects private development pressures may have had a hand in the current plan. It even becomes an argument in the petition.
“[SD1] has no power to condemn private property to engage in residential or commercial development itself nor to assist others engaged in residential or commercial development,” the petition reads.
The expectation of future economic development in the central county at the very least contextualizes the project. The 2021 Updated Watershed Plan marks that area as among the county’s projected areas for future growth for 2040. The area in question is set off in blue on the map below.
One of the region’s major real estate developers, Arlinghaus (and its subsidiaries), owns several large, undeveloped land parcels within the Woolper Creek watershed, according to Boone County property records. The land is set off in blue on the map below.
One of SD1’s board members, Jill Bezold, is a manager for Arlinghaus. She recused herself from July’s vote.
Cost also contextualizes the plan’s current form.
A June 2021 letter from Boone County Judge/Executive Gary Moore to the Northern Kentucky Area Development District, to which SD1 Executive Director Adam Chaney is CC’d, describes how the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority had put out a call for sewer and clean water projects. A subsequent memo to the SD1 Board, put out only a month later, indicates the federal government had disbursed about $4.9 million in American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funding to the infrastructure authority specifically for Boone County to be used for sewer and water projects.
Moore’s letter indicates a proposal to use the ARPA funds as a match for an even larger grant to bankroll the early parts of the sewer project. SD1’s attorney Brian Ellerman stated SD1 had received about $10.6 million in ARPA funds to date for the project, although that funding isn’t evenly distributed across the project’s phases. The phase approved last month will be paid for entirely out of SD1’s pocket.
Ellerman admitted cost played a role in the plan taking shape, but he argued it’s not the only reason.
“After considering constructability, lifecycle costs, long-term operations, environmental impacts, system resiliency and regulatory requirements, SD1 determined the Central Boone County Master Plan provided the best overall solution,” Ellerman said.
Ellerman also explained the current plan is less structurally complicated than the alternatives.
“Rather than continuing to rely on a series of interconnected pump stations and force mains through established neighborhoods, the selected alternative redirects flows through a regional conveyance system to the Western Regional Water Reclamation Facility, where treatment capacity is available,” Ellerman said. “The plan also eliminates the need for several future capital projects.”
In order to build the sewer, SD1 had to secure seven easements to build on parts of Pille’s property. It tried to convince Pille to give them up willingly at first by offering her a payment of $22,100 to purchase the easements, according to a letter sent to Pille by the agency’s law firm in July 2024.
When Pille didn’t respond one way or another, SD1 took her to court.
Condemnation
SD1 sued Pille in Boone County Circuit Court in August 2024 to condemn her property in order to take the areas marked for easement, according to court records.
Pille requested a hearing to unpack the evidence in early January 2025. During the hearing, Pille performed a long cross-examination of Lydia Watkins, SD1’s senior director of engineering, mostly about the 2017 report detailing the various options for addressing sewer overflow in the central county, especially the Bullittsville Pumping Station plan.
Boone County Circuit Court Judge James Schrand ruled in favor of SD1 on March 21, 2025, essentially stating that the public need for the sewer was enough for SD1 to condemn Pille’s property.
“Court finds SD1 has proven a public need to condemn Ms. Pille’s property,” Schrand writes in his opinion. “It is not arbitrary the Defendant has not provided the Court with evidence of fraud, bad faith or abuse of discretion to the extent necessary to challenge such a taking. Monetary damages are a matter to be determined by a Jury and do not rise to the level necessary to disrupt the right to take.”
Pille appealed the following April and continued to send letters to SD1 highlighting her environmental concerns.
“Stream crossings run major risks,” Pille writes in an August 2025 letter. “If a buried pipe cracks or leaks, it could discharge raw sewage into the stream for weeks, months or even years before it’s detected. Furthermore, fixing a buried pipe involves heavy construction within the stream, causing more negative environmental impact. This would also cause tremendous loss of wildlife habitat for the aquatic life and animals that use the stream for food and water.”
Her correspondence also referenced SD1’s work along Banklick Creek, which, according to Pille, “resulted in multiple leaks, manhole lids being blown off by storms and sewage overflows, manholes collapsing, landslides (with one landslide restricting the width of the creek to only about a foot wide), and about a half-mile of sewer pipe laid above-ground for at least 10 years.”
Reporting from LINK nky‘s content-sharing partner WCPO in 2017 references a spill in Bancklick Creek that same year, which “happened because a temporary pump, installed when a pipe was being repaired in the creek, failed. The spill killed fish and left sewage in and around the creek in late summer.”
The appeals court also ruled in SD1’s favor in April of this year.
Ellerman responded to the environmental concerns in an email to LINK.
“Restoration plans have been developed for each stream crossing, and the temporary construction corridor was reduced from approximately 100 feet to 40 feet in many locations to minimize vegetation impacts and tree removal,” said Ellerman. “The project has been coordinated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Kentucky Division of Water and other regulatory agencies, with environmental review and permitting incorporated throughout the design process.”
There is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will hear Pille’s case, and the project will move forward while everyone waits.
“If the court determines that the public entity has the right to take, then the public entity can continue with the project,” Ellerman said at the July SD1 board meeting.