02-25-1998 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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inspection, and were charged $15.00 (the cost to the city). Non participation resulted in an additional $75.00 charge to the owner per month. A few are currently paying this charge. Paul Waldron, Building Inspector Waconia Passed ordinance for new and existing homes last year. For new homes any sump basket or pit must have a pump and a hard plumb to the outside. Additionally, after inspection a sticker is placed on the pipe informing the resident of the ordinance and penalty for non- compliance. For existing homes a three month inspection was conducted internally by public works and the building inspector (who is contracted by the city). Residents were informed via mail and through the news media of the program and why it would benefit them. Residents had a period of time to schedule an appointment, failure to do so would result in a $70.00 per month fine. Only a few have not participated. They noticed an immediate and dramatic decrease in I &I after the program was completed. Paul estimated that they are saving about $120,000 per year. Waconia has a population of about 4,000. This savings extrapolated to a city the size of Plymouth would be approximately $1,000,000 — similar to other estimates made. City of Duluth A representative from the City of Duluth presented their I &I reduction program to the Waste Water Operators Conference in Bloomington on 1/25/94. Their experience has not been good, partly because of the haste in development of the program and of the scope. Duluth currently dumps excess I &I into Lake Superior. While this is a serious pollution concern (PCA mandated that they develop a reduction program) there is not the scale of savings that could be found in a similar community where reduction in I &I would equate to tangible waste water treatment savings. They had their original proposal forced into a voter referendum which was subsequently defeated last September. After that they appointed a citizen task force to develop a more palatable program that is now being implemented. This program would solve the commercial area I &I first and the residential second. They are looking at requiring homeowner to install 16,000 sump pumps and the city would expend about $40 million in capital improvements, including new storm sewers. Daniel Reindal, Public Works Director City of Alden Population of 600. The city council passed an ordinance requiring sump pumps to be hard plumb last year. This was an about face from an earlier ordinance that required homeowners to dump into the sanitary system in order to prevent stagnant water from collecting causing a health concern. The new ordinance recognizes the cost of dumping into the sanitary system out weighs any health concerns. There is teeth to their ordinance- - homeowners would be fined $100 per day for refusing to participate in the inspection. Page 104 Page 11