Archive: News

When the Lansing Town sewer project was killed on July 6, 2007 the word was that the project was dead for good, not just tabled.  Town officials said that they still believed that sewer would be important in Lansing's future, but unless it were affordable it would never happen.  What killed the project was the  New York State of Environmental Conservation (DEC) 's insistance that Lansing and five other municipalities share two sewage treatment plants in Cayuga Heights and the Town of Ithaca.  Getting the Town's effluent to the Cayuga Heights plant forced an expensive and unpopular solution of running a trunk line through the Village of Lansing to join the Town with the plant.

Since then the Town has been sounding out the DEC to see if they would be willing to change the rules of the game.  "The initial reaction was that they would favor a standalone plant," says Lansing Supervisor Scott Pinney.  "To go beyond that the Town has met with the DEC in the last few months to try to get some money back that we spent on the large sewer project"

Pinney, Councilman Bud Shattuck (who chaired the sewer committee), and engineer David Herrick met with DEC officials this Fall to ask about retrieving funds spent on the engineering of the failed project, as well as for the Kline Road bypass project, a piece of the plan that was actually completed.  They also sounded out DEC officials about using approximately $5 million of bond act money to build a more modest project, the lynchpin of which would be a standalone plant, possibly north of Myers Point.

At today's pricing it would cost the Town about $3.5 million for a standalone plant.  "My thought would be that one of the first areas you would want to tie in with is the Lansing Schools," Pinney says.  "Then you would come up by the Town Hall and the Town Center area.  With almost $5 million there obviously it would be at a very low cost to the taxpayers."

Cost would be key to any sewer project getting off the ground.  Lansing Schools Buildings & Grounds Supervisor Glenn Fenner says that the proposed cost to the school district of the failed sewer project -- estimated at about $150,000 -- far exceeded the cost of maintaining the schools' admittedly shaky septic system. 

"They based it on our annual water usage," he says.  "But we have irrigation on the fields and that water isn't going back into the septic system.  We spend a little over $3,000 per year just to pump the tanks.  We do have some breakdowns that come to about $5,000 per year to get that back up and running.  We're spending less than $10,000 per year."

"One of our philosophies is, 'do we really need it?'" says Lansing School Superintendent Stephen Grimm.  "From the perspective of someone in the buildings it all looks the same.  The water goes down and it goes somewhere.  We have a septic system that works on our land.  It worked for 20 years and chances are it is going to work for another 30 years."

He acknowledges that the school septic systems have their problems, but says it is more cost efficient to fix each piece as it fails.  Even if it does fail new septic systems may cost less than a sewer.  "If we know that we can spend $600,000 and get a completely upgraded septic system that's going to last for the next 30 years, that's about $20,000 per year," he says.  "If we had to pay $100,000 per year for sewer, why would we want to do that?"

Pinney says that if the DEC allows a standalone plant as well as letting the Town use the remaining bond act money, that cost could be low enough to attract the school district, fire district and individual businesses and homes along the route.  While there would have to be some threshold of the number of users needed to make the project feasible, Pinney says the Town would not force anyone to participate who didn't want to.

"One of the things we would definitely not do is charge people who were not actually able to hook up to the sewer," he says.  "It would only be the people who are actually on the line."

The Warren Road sewer project seems to be a model for the Town's new thinking.  The only people involved in that project are people who want to be.  While the cost is actually quite a bit more per Equivalent Dwelling Unit (EDU) than the failed project's cost would have been, everyone involved is willing to pay it to get sewer.  Town officials unanimously say that if sewer isn't affordable it will not happen.  If a project were to materialize they would have to use the bond act money to reduce or eliminate much of the cost.  Such a project wouldn't be as widespread, but if other neighborhoods wanted to opt in to the project they would be able to if they were willing to pay, in much the same way as the water district is extended to new areas now.

Pinney is clear that any future project is speculative, in exploratory preliminary stages, and there is no project at this time.  He says there will be no project if all the pieces don't fall into place.  "If the DEC said yes on the idea of the standalone plant, but then say no to using the grant money to help install that, in my opinion we wouldn't move forward because we would have the high per-EDU costs again," he says.  "So it would have to be yes in both cases."

If a sewer district were to be formed, those within it would heve to hook up to the sewer.  But the Town could choose to exclude properties by taking a similar 'cookie-cutter' approach to that used when forming the Warren Road district, simply not including properties along the way whose owners don't want to opt in.  Once a property is part of a sewer district it is a different story.  Lansing Town Attorney Guy Krogh says that even if the Town wanted to give property owners within a sewer district the option to not hook up, County law might supercede the Town's authority to do that.

"Generally, if the land is included within a district, it is going to be deemed a benefited property by law and it could, or would, be charged by the district for such benefit," Krogh explains. "And generally again, this would apply to other governmental property owners, such as the school, as the fee affects, applies to, and is charged against the land within the town, not against the property owner per se. Generally, with sewers and water, being "benefited" generally requires the ability to hook-up (but not always). I believe there is a Tompkins County Law that states that if you have access to a public sewer, you must hook-up within one year (I think this is a public health law)."

But Pinney says that if the School District isn't interested the project ahead of time, it would likely not happen at all.  "It would benefit the schools tremendously," he says.  "If we had that kind of money we could certainly work something out with the schools.  I would be in favor of helping the schools to get something working for them.  We'd work out some formula that is beneficial to both parties."

"Scott's approach is the correct one," Krogh notes.  "The best way to build infrastructure is by cooperation and consensus."

Grimm doesn't close the door on sewer.  He says that it is a simple matter of dollars and cents.  "Dollars, cents, and good sense," he says.  "Just because it's there doesn't mean we're going to jump on the opportunity.  If it costs more money to do that we have a system that worked for 30 years and if we replaced it it would probably work for another 30.  We don't plan on much of a population increase right now, so there is no reason to think that we'd have more users."


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