Lebanon
City officials had hoped to spend $2.1 million by 2020 to connect 43 homes onto the municipal sewer system. But the City Council on Wednesday reversed course as the neighborhood balked at splitting construction costs.
Under the city’s proposal, homeowners collectively would have paid just over $1 million for the new sewer line, with each household’s share broken into payments over 20 years.
However, some residents said the estimated $34,360 per house was too high a price, and decided to instead stick with septic systems.
“It’s not necessarily that the neighborhood is opposed to the sewer, it’s that the neighborhood is opposed to sewer at that cost,” resident Valerie Nevel told the City Council on Wednesday.
Nevel recently was quoted $12,000 for a new septic system, which she said is much cheaper than Lebanon’s request for sewer.
“You’re talking two to three times the cost for most of us and it just doesn’t financially make sense,” she said.
The city has indicated several times that it could build sewer lines to Hillcrest Acres, which was built more than 50 years ago, and where homeowners have long struggled to maintain septic systems. Poor soil has resulted in several systems failing, causing neighbors to complain about spongy fields and terrible smells.
In May, the City Council offered to hook the neighborhood up to Lebanon’s sewer system as part of a $6.5 million effort to rebuild Hillcrest’s roads, upgrade water lines and improve drainage. That’s also when officials offered a 50-50 split on construction costs, with Lebanon’s sewer ratepayers picking up the remaining half.
However, after two community conversations that were “fairly well attended” and a walkabout with engineers, the neighbors rejected the offer in an unofficial poll, according to City Manager Shaun Mulholland.
The city mailed a letter on Aug. 1 asking residents whether they approved of the project. Of the 33 homes that responded, 27 declined the offer.
“There were those folks who had septic systems that felt that they could continue to operate on those and weren’t interested in tying into the system,” Mulholland told the council. “There were those that felt they simply couldn’t afford to do this.”
The city had hoped to avert public health issues by installing the sewer line. Runoff from the neighborhood is known to flow downhill into the Mascoma River.
“It’s just going to be incumbent on the city to enforce the requirements that (homes) have functional septic systems that are not causing a public health problem,” said City Councilor Clifton Below, who advocated for halting the sewer project.
During the meeting, resident Brendan Collins asked that officials not give up on the sewer plans, and encouraged them to look for other, potentially cheaper solutions.
“It’s not just money, it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “And the people on Hillcrest have been waiting 40 years for this.”
But officials said the city was generous offering to cover half the construction costs, adding they couldn’t expect current sewer customers to foot more.
“I think we’re all sitting, looking at the same thing. You’ve got a bad situation and it’s going to cost money to fix it,” City Councilor Erling Heistad said. “I wish there was a better way of doing it, but I don’t know if the city can really ask other ratepayers to go ahead and pick up more than half of the cost.”
City officials do hope to move forward with road, drainage and water line repairs for the neighborhood, which is scheduled for 2020 at a cost of $4.5 million.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223