City commissioners discuss plan to ease sewer backups
By Russ Morgan (Contact)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Emporia City Commissioners discussed a plan to alleviate sewer backups that occur in certain low spots during heavy rains at the commission’s Wednesday study session.
The plan involves encouraging residents in these areas to install check valves or gate valves to prevent water from backing up into homes. A valve would cost from $1,000 to $2,500 to install, and under the plan the city would pay half the cost.
According to city engineer Mike Novak, sewer backups can occur from water backing up into homes from the city sanitary sewer either from too much water in the system or because of a blockage.
“This is more directed toward addressing the city’s main that backs up and causes problems in basements,” Novak said. “Typically, high water is the thing you see recurring in low places in the system or in places where the capacity of the sewer doesn’t handle the flows that are being given to the sanitary sewer.”
Novak said most of those flows come from rain water.
The group discussed two kinds of valves: an automatic check valve that closes when it senses water backing up and a manual gate valve that requires someone to close and open it.
According to water treatment plant supervisor Ron Rhodes, the city receives an average of 120 calls per year regarding storm water backups.
“During heavy rains is when we typically get most of our calls,” Rhodes said, and most of those come from a specific area between Constitution and Sunnyslope Streets between 6th Avenue and 18th Avenue.
One possible problem Novak pointed out is that if check valves were installed in lower-lying homes, those higher up would start having problems with water backing up.
“The water would continue to still be in the city sewer system, and yet will find a different low place to enter a home,” Novak said. “So addressing some people’s problem could migrate the problem to other homes potentially.”
“That brings up a question I wanted to ask,” said Commissioner Julie Johnson. “If you address all of these individual service lines with check valves, that water still has to go somewhere, so what is the real outcome and what are the potential results of having that amount of water in the system?”
Novak said there are two things to expect: additional homes will experience backups and manholes could overtop.
“That’s why this is addressing a symptom instead of providing a solution,” Novak said.
The program is being presented as a piecemeal solution to a widespread and long-standing problem with an extensive, costly solution.
“We wanted to come to you with a first step, which is to encourage people to put in check valves, and see this as a multi-year program,” said city manager Matt Zimmerman. “... It’s a cost-effective way of getting the worst areas taken care of.”
Zimmerman said a bigger solution would be to replace sanitary sewers with larger pipes, a project that could cost “multiple hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars.”
“What we’re offering today is a way to offer help to to those residents that currently have regular backups due to the city’s main having more water in it than what it can handle,” Novak said, and compared solving the problem to moving a mountain one rock at a time.
The commission also discussed pricing models for the Emporia Municipal Golf Course and the Jones Aquatic Center in a presentation put together by Emporia State University economics professor Rob Catlett.
Catlett’s presentation focused on pricing models that would draw more people to the golf course and the aquatic center in an effort to decrease the city’s subsidies to those facilities.
Speaking about the golf course, Catlett said it’s important to increase the quality of play so people will enjoy it more.
“What we’ve been doing in the past is to ... charge one price typically, and so all the people that want to play, play at that price,” Catlett said. It is known, he said, that some are willing to pay a higher price and some are price-sensitive. “We want to take advantage of those opportunities and to give people an opportunity to pay for higher levels of service.”
Catlett said his model for the golf course gives price breaks for less-premium times at the golf course, such as in the evenings or weekdays. He also proposed giving special low rates to junior players to encourage them to learn the game.
“These are our future golfers,” he said.
For the aquatic center, Catlett proposed lowering rates during less prime periods, such as weekdays, and lowering rates for youths. He also proposed offering 1/2 price rates for non-swimmers to encourage sunbathers and parents who may not want to swim.
dale011 (anonymous) says...
Does this sound like putting a finger in the dyke to anyone else? Get the project of replacing the inadequate sanitary sewer pipes "shovel ready" and beg the President for some "G" money like everyone else is. Our grandchildren can pay the bill along with all the others the President is dropping on them.
April 22, 2009 at 3:35 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
neighbor (anonymous) says...
Sounds more like an admission of liability to me.
April 22, 2009 at 3:37 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
pbpw (anonymous) says...
I was told years ago that having a check valve was not legal in Emporia. Is this not so?
April 22, 2009 at 4:03 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
admireed (anonymous) says...
Thank you for engaging Prof. Catlett for consultation. Lots of experts right here at home as was suggested by a city commission candidate a few years ago No need to buy out of town.
April 22, 2009 at 4:22 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
noel_stanton (anonymous) says...
Rainwater should not be contaminated by being drained into sewage lines. If the two effluents are mixed in one pipe, the pipe is quickly overloaded and all the liquid volume must be treated and cleaned. This both overworks the sewage plant and leads to backups in basements and manholes.
Many communities use a dual system of a separate storm sewer parallel to the sanitary sewer. The rainwater discharges directly into a river or similar runoff. The solution is not cheap but certainly a more sustainable answer to the Emporia problem than check valves.
April 22, 2009 at 11 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )