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A sewer plan for the Town of Lansing will be presented next Wednesday (3/7) at a special working meeting of the Town Board at the Village of Lansing Hall.  The project has been a long time coming, especially if you count the three or four major sewer projects the Town was never able to pass.  This project is made possible because of a collaboration between the Town, the Village of Cayuga Heights that owns the sewer treatment plant, and the Village of Lansing thats pipes will carry effluent from the town to the treatment plant.

"This is a symbiotic relationship between all three municipalities - the Village of Cayuga heights, the Village of Lansing and the town of Lansing," says Town of Lansing supervisor Ed LaVigne. "We've been working on this project since around February of 2016.  We're sharing services in many different ways.  This is a win-win-win situation."

The meeting is the first in a series of monthly working meetings the Town has planned, primarily to give the public to weigh in on the comprehensive plan revision at locations around the Town.  Future working meetings will be held at the Lansingville Fire Station and the North Lansing Fire Station before the plan is voted on by the Town Board.  The working meetings, held on the first Wednesday of each month, will not replace the regular Town Board meetings on the third Wednesday at the Town Hall.

LaVigne says that various infrastructure projects are in the works.  Consolidated Water District Extension #4 on Drake Road should be up and running in a couple of years.  LaVigne says that property owners in that district will pay less because the Town Highway Department will install the pipes for the project.


The new sewer district will initially benefit three developments.  The developers of the RINK/the FIELD, English Village, and Cayuga Orchards will pay for the construction.  LaVigne says part of the cost will be to reimburse the Town for engineering and legal fees already spent on the project, and that the developers have agreed to install pipes with more capacity than that needed just for their three developments.  That will allow for future extensions to allow other property owners to hook up to the sewer, as long as there is capacity available. 

The three municipalities signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) last July that allocates 33,050 gallons a day for Town of Lansing use.  LaVigne says that the new system will be carefully monitored to make sure there is an accurate reading of how much of that capacity is used.

Sewage treatment capacity has also been an issue for the Village of Lansing.  Mayor Donald Hartill says that many older properties have illegally hooked up sump pumps to their sewer hookups, pushing extra water through the sewer and using more capacity than should be needed.  He has said that closer monitoring and better maintenance related to Infill and Infiltration (I&I), which also included water leaking into the sanitary sewer system may increase available capacity for new hookups.

That will be important, because when the town sewer is built the Village is contemplating extending their own sewer system on Cayuga Heights Road.

Town Engineer David Herrick has put together a conservative schedule that would see the sewer system complete and ready to operate by August 2019 if all goes according to plan.

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