LONGTON'S WOES

[CCarl]

Is It Time for Outhouses Again?
After-all, A Neighboring Village Celebrates Them Every Year

Longton's sewer system is roughly fifty years old. As some of you undoubtedly know, it is broken to the point of needing replacement or extensive repairs. I encourage everyone in town to read the coming posts, and have an opinion about what to do. Then let the City know what you want.

Our town's sewer system criss-crosses town to the tune of approximately 29,400 feet, or 5.5 miles. It has four pump stations to pump waste water against grade, while the majority of the eight-inch diameter tile pipe gravity feeds into settling/treatment ponds in the northeast corner of town.

With larger rainstorms, cracks and cave-in's allow ground water in the lines, mixing with waste water, and causing pipes to overflow, bringing human waste to the surface of some rights-of-way, and possibly challenging the capacity of the sewer ponds.

A regional engineering firm did a quick, pro bono, preliminary estimate of the cost to reline the system, and identified $4,000,000.00 worth of expenses. OUCH! The estimate did not speak to other options, such as replacing the existing sewer line with a new one, or with septic tanks and drain fields at each residence. Neither did it say that relining the existing sewer was the most cost efficient alternative.

Look for several additional posts several weeks from now, where design and construction options are discussed, along with their associated costs.

The City applied for a grant to hire an engineer to assist in the decision making. The State denied the grant without saying why. The comment was, "Try again next year". More than likely, we are small fish in a big pond to the State.

So, the big deal here is to have public involvement in the decision making. Four million is too much dough for our City Council to decide upon without extensive resident input, including the possibility of a special election to approve some version of a new system to treat household waste. To wit, our rather laggard council seems to want to approve bills and minutes, then go home. They approved a water bill last fall without officially questioning why it was not discounted when the water district failed in its obligation to provide us potable water for three weeks. The town residents need to be involved, and we deserve better representation from Council.