Sanitation District 1, or SD1, has issued a formal written defense of its design choices for a large sewer project in Boone County, which have proven unpopular with some residents in the affected area.
The defense follows a special meeting of SD1’s Board of Directors Tuesday morning, which was held in closed session.
“The project represents a significant long-term investment in Boone County’s wastewater infrastructure,” reads a written statement SD1 sent to LINK nky. “Once completed, it will eliminate approximately 1.2 million gallons of sanitary sewer overflows into Woolper Creek in a typical year, improve system reliability and make better use of available treatment capacity at SD1’s Western Regional system.”
The project has been in the works for years, but it’s 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. She has petitioned the Kentucky Supreme Court to hear her case. Both she and her attorney declined to comment for this story due to the pending litigation.
Pille’s neighbors and other concerned community members have since taken up Pille’s cause, speaking at public meetings and insisting that SD1 explain the evidence and decision making process behind choosing the design that encroaches upon Pille’s land. They’ve also put pressure on the Boone County Fiscal Court, which issued a letter in late September asking SD1 to offer an explanation for its decision.
Pille’s supporters frequently reference 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 so-called “Hazen report,” which you can read here, offered several alternative designs for addressing the problem of sewer overflow, one of which, dubbed alternative B.2, resembles the current plan. Pille and her supporters have come out in favor of another design alternative in the report called design B.3, which would not touch Pille’s property and would require easements from fewer property owners: three property owners versus 18. B.3 would also entail upgrades at the Bullitsville Pump Station.
SD1’s defense uses the language of the Hazen report to make its case. Specifically, it focuses on B.2’s greater reliance on gravity sewer infrastructure (i.e. piping that generates water flow through the normal physical mechanics of gravity, rather than powered pumps), which they argue would be a better long term solution than the B.3 alternative.
It specifically cites issues along the Hebron KY-237 corridor, which “relies heavily on interconnected pump stations and force mains which were added incrementally as development occurred,” according to SD1’s defense. “Over time, the resulting network of pump stations created bottlenecks and additional infrastructure that had to be operated, maintained, upgraded and eventually replaced.”
Both alternatives rely on a combination of gravity infrastructure and powered infrastructure to different degrees, but B.2 contains more gravity conveyances. SD1’s defense includes maps that show a larger area served by the gravity infrastructure in B.2 than in B.3.
SD1 admits that B.3 was the preferred design alternative early on, but “it was clear under the circumstances that B.3 would have to wait a decade or two for funding,” according to SD1’s defense.
“While each of the alternatives evaluated could address the existing sewer overflow problem, SD1 selected B.2 because it provides broader long-term benefits to the community,” according to the written statement to LINK nky from SD1. “By relying more heavily on gravity, eliminating the Bullittsville Pump Station, and reducing the need for additional pumping and wastewater storage facilities, B.2 reduces the amount of mechanical infrastructure customers must pay to operate, maintain, repair and eventually replace.”
Pille’s supporters were skeptical, however.
“They didn’t really answer our questions,” said Jennifer Watts, one of Pille’s neighbors who has emerged as one of the more vocal critics of the plan. Watts and other members of her group later issued their own response to SD1.
“SD1 has stated why it still prefers B.2,” reads the group’s response. “It has not shown the specific records, calculations, comparisons and decision process that justified choosing B.2 after Hazen recommended against it.”
You can read both SD1’s defense and the community members’ response to SD1’s defense below:
