- By Dan Veaner
- Opinions
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One thing that I've noticed is that no matter how lofty an idea is presented to argue for or against the sewer, it almost always comes down to where one lives and what might happen to that location. For example almost ever person who argued against putting the trunk sewer line through the old railroad bed had property there, and the same for those who argued against Cayuga Heights Road.
And recently I've heard some people charge that the Town Board is in the palm of outside developers' hands, making sure the sewer goes through vacant properties to make them more valuable for developers, especially out of town developers. The engineers reply that they just wanted to put the pipe where it would serve the most people for the least money, and laying it in a straight line accomplishes that. They show how that works on a map. But that doesn't seem to convince the accusers.
Some were direct, airing concerns about odors, noise and local fauna near their homes. Many couched their objections in philosophical or environmental arguments, often ignoring facts that don't fit their theories.
Certainly making a sewer has consequences, but much less certain is that all of them are intentional. I sat through countless sewer meetings while the committee struggled with alternative ways of splitting the costs, defining what should make up an Equivalent Dwelling Unit (EDU), and how many EDUs should be assigned to different kinds of properties. Sometimes my eyes glazed over and my head started throbbing as committee members sorted through alternative approaches that were so complicated that at times I didn't even know how the lawyers and engineers were keeping up.
As far as I could tell they were just trying to come up with a fair approach. And they continue to tweak it as residents question it. For example, the amount of frontage affects the number of EDUs assigned to a property, and in the original plan that put corner properties at a disadvantage to typical properties with only one side exposed to a road. The sewer committee agreed that was not fair, and have made an adjustment.
They are currently considering the five year deadline for property owners to hook up, because of the large cost of new septic systems. The argument is that if you just spent 10 or 12 thousand on a septic, you should be able to wait longer than five years before paying for sewer hookup and service as well.
Sewer Committee members appear to me to be people of good intentions trying to make their town better. They argue that growth and greater density is coming anyway, and controlling it with sewer is a prudent thing to do to preserve the town's character, to protect farm lands, and to control the direction of growth. As far as I can discern there aren't any conspiracies. But then, I agree with that idea of controlling inevitable growth. If it weren't inevitable I wouldn't worry so much about controlling it.
Fear of change, the unknown, worrying about where the additional money will come from, paying for something you don't want, or perhaps don't need -- these are all natural reactions to a project like this. The spectre of sewer may make it tempting to attribute the things that bring on these fears to malevolent intent. Hey, everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. Just ask Oliver Stone (who I believe conspired to make millions of dollars making conspiracy theory movies)!
But they can also come from the fact that sewer will be good for some people, not so good for others, and some people want it and some don't. Residents have ample time to tell their government what they think, and the Town Board seems to be listening and reacting to concerns. At some point I think they will probably form a sewer district, and at that point
residents within its confines will have a chance to vote up or down on the issue. That's when we'll really find out for sure what most people think about it.
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