Sewer Leak Ordinance
[ SBN-P, 4/6/2005 ]:
Ordinance panel backs sewer plan
4/6/05
By JOSHUA MOLINA
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
City officials on Tuesday backed a plan that would force homeowners to pay to have their sewer pipes inspected and repaired if they are leaking.
"This is a public health issue," Councilwoman Helene Schneider said. "This is something that affects the entire community."
The city's three-member ordinance committee, Ms. Schneider, Brian Barnwell and Iya Falcone, backed the idea on Tuesday. The city is proposing a series of changes that would require sewer inspections in an attempt to stop raw sewage from spilling onto streets and possibly winding up in the creeks and beaches.
Actions that would trigger mandatory inspections include: sale of a property; an addition or remodel of more than 400 square feet; a spill from a private lateral, which connects the house to the city line; or if the city's routine smoke inspections reveal leaky pipes or illegal hookups.
Members of the city's Public Works staff are working on the details and may make changes after holding public meetings in May and June. Then the matter will go before the city's creeks advisory committee, water commission and then back to the ordinance committee with any changes. If the City Council approves it, the ordinance could go into effect in January 2006.
Environmentalists say they believe the city's pipes, some of them 80 years old, are cracking and leaking raw sewage underground. People have even suggested that some homes have no sewer pipes connecting to city mains, and that the raw sewage just gets dumped into the ground.
Illegal hookups -- where people link gutter and patio drains to the city's sewer system to improve runoff and drainage on their property -- are also to blame for spills because they overwhelm the city's sewer system, officials say.
Councilman Das Williams is a big supporter of the proposed ordinance. "It is absolutely necessary for the city to prevent two things, leaking sewers and overflowing sewers, because they may play such a large role in our bacterial problem."
Not everyone thinks the ordinance is the way to go. A representative from the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors on Tuesday agreed with the city that it is important to replace defective sewer lines but disagreed with the idea of tying the fee to the sale of a home.
"Defective sewer laterals impact the entire community," said Carol Kruckenberg, who read a letter on behalf of Louis Manzo, president of the real estate agents group. "It is not fair to put the problem that the whole community shares on only a segment of the population, the home buyer and seller."
The city staff agreed to study the issue.
e-mail: jmolina@newspress.com
[ SBN-P online edition:
Ordinance panel backs sewer plan ]
Ordinance panel backs sewer plan
4/6/05
By JOSHUA MOLINA
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
City officials on Tuesday backed a plan that would force homeowners to pay to have their sewer pipes inspected and repaired if they are leaking.
"This is a public health issue," Councilwoman Helene Schneider said. "This is something that affects the entire community."
The city's three-member ordinance committee, Ms. Schneider, Brian Barnwell and Iya Falcone, backed the idea on Tuesday. The city is proposing a series of changes that would require sewer inspections in an attempt to stop raw sewage from spilling onto streets and possibly winding up in the creeks and beaches.
Actions that would trigger mandatory inspections include: sale of a property; an addition or remodel of more than 400 square feet; a spill from a private lateral, which connects the house to the city line; or if the city's routine smoke inspections reveal leaky pipes or illegal hookups.
Members of the city's Public Works staff are working on the details and may make changes after holding public meetings in May and June. Then the matter will go before the city's creeks advisory committee, water commission and then back to the ordinance committee with any changes. If the City Council approves it, the ordinance could go into effect in January 2006.
Environmentalists say they believe the city's pipes, some of them 80 years old, are cracking and leaking raw sewage underground. People have even suggested that some homes have no sewer pipes connecting to city mains, and that the raw sewage just gets dumped into the ground.
Illegal hookups -- where people link gutter and patio drains to the city's sewer system to improve runoff and drainage on their property -- are also to blame for spills because they overwhelm the city's sewer system, officials say.
Councilman Das Williams is a big supporter of the proposed ordinance. "It is absolutely necessary for the city to prevent two things, leaking sewers and overflowing sewers, because they may play such a large role in our bacterial problem."
Not everyone thinks the ordinance is the way to go. A representative from the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors on Tuesday agreed with the city that it is important to replace defective sewer lines but disagreed with the idea of tying the fee to the sale of a home.
"Defective sewer laterals impact the entire community," said Carol Kruckenberg, who read a letter on behalf of Louis Manzo, president of the real estate agents group. "It is not fair to put the problem that the whole community shares on only a segment of the population, the home buyer and seller."
The city staff agreed to study the issue.
e-mail: jmolina@newspress.com
[ SBN-P online edition:
Ordinance panel backs sewer plan ]
Posted by Malcolm on
4/06/2005
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