Demonstrators and Northern Kentucky residents protested outside the headquarters of Sanitation District 1 (SD1) Tuesday against a massive sewer project in Boone County.
Many also spoke before SD1’s Board of Directors, asking them to reconsider and possibly reroute the project.
The project itself runs along Woolper Creek and has been in the works for years. The board of directors approved the fourth phase of the project’s construction in July.
Although the project isn’t new, it recently garnered more public attention due to SD1’s court battle with Gayle Pille, a local naturalist and landowner whose property is affected by the project. SD1 is using eminent domain, wherein a government agency expropriates private property for public use, to condemn a portion of her property to build the sewer. Pille had plans to convert the land into a nature preserve.
“This project is much bigger than Gayle,” said Jennifer Watts, who served as a lead speaker for the demonstrators. “It affects all of Boone County. Litigation does not prevent the public from asking about the project itself.”
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, including the Boone County project, focus on addressing this problem.
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, 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.
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. Pille appealed but lost in April. Now, after two years of legal battles, she has petitioned the Kentucky Supreme Court to take up her case.
Pille requested a hearing in the Circuit Court to examine 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 a 2017 report detailing the various options for addressing sewer overflow in the central county. That report was furnished by consulting firm Hazen and Sawyer, a national firm with an office in Cincinnati.
The “Hazen report,” as people have come to refer to it, offered several alternative designs for addressing the problem of sewer overflow, one of which, dubbed alternative B2, resembles the current plan. Some of the demonstrators Tuesday had created signs and placards showing the differences between alternative B2 and another alternative, B3, which they preferred. B3 would not touch Pille’s property and would require easements from fewer property owners, according to the Hazen report: three property owners versus 18.
You can read the full Hazen report here.
The Hazen Report itself concludes that either alternatives B2, B3 or another alternative, A3, would have been feasible for SD1’s needs. Alternative B3 was listed as the least environmentally impactful of the three alternatives, a point several speakers brought up, although it admitted B2 “may present more opportunities to reduce SD1’s net costs through cost-sharing.”
SD1 Executive Director Adam Chaney read from prepared statement, a transcript of which you can read here, at the meeting.
“SD1 recognizes that the Central Boone County Sewer Project has a very real and personal impact on Miss Pille and her property,” Chaney said. “We respect that, and we’re not here to minimize anyone’s concerns, especially hers. At the same time, SD1 has a responsibility to make decisions based on what is best for the entire community, today and for decades to come.”
Chaney went on say that the current plan “provides a gravity-based solution that reduces reliance on pump stations and ongoing operation, maintenance and the eventual replacement cost associated with those pumps. Those costs matter because infrastructure decisions made today will affect our ratepayers long into the future.”
Brian Ellerman, SD1’s attorney, argued for the benefits of a gravity-based sewer system, rather than a pump and force based one, in an email he sent to LINK nky after the meeting. It includes a table, transcribed below, comparing the two methods.
Long-Term Comparison Summary
Metric Gravity Sewer Pump Station & Force Main Energy Consumption None (100% passive) High (Ongoing electrical costs) Moving Parts Zero High (Pumps, valves, float switches) Equipment Lifespan 50–100+ years (Pipes/Manholes) 10–20 years (Pump cores/Electronics) Risk of Failure Low (Mainly localized blockages) Moderate to High (Power outages, mechanical failure) Odor & Septicity Low (Continuous, passive flow) Higher (Sewage sitting in wet wells can turn septic)
No formal action on the project was taken at the meeting, and the litigation on the eminent domain case is ongoing.