Iowa City homeowners association fined for wastewater violations

Residents of a wooded neighborhood with about 30 homes north of Iowa City must — in the next year — curb their chloride contamination of a nearby creek, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

In recent years the DNR has noted more than 100 wastewater violations for the Timber Trails Estates Homeowner's Association, department records show.

Excessive ammonia and bacteria were common issues before the association updated its wastewater treatment system several years ago. But chloride has been a continuing problem, the records show.

The association uses a series of lagoons to reduce the contaminations before wastewater is discharged into Sanders Creek, which eventually flows to the Iowa River.

It told the department it has no acceptable way to fix the chloride problem, given that it had already spent an unspecified amount of money to update the lagoon system.

"The only feasible or practical possibility of chloride reduction would be for members of Timber Trails Association to reduce their use of water softeners or change to a non-sodium-chloride softener," the association told the DNR last year. "Due to the money spent for the sewage treatment plant, it would be a further burden for the homeowners to change their softener equipment at this time."

Common water softening systems periodically use water saturated with sodium chloride — usually referred to as salt — to flush the debris they filter from the systems. Timber Trails residents discharge that water to their lagoons.

The DNR maintains a list of recommendations to reduce that sort of contamination. That includes "optimizing salt usage," switching to a different type of water treatment system or removing the softeners, among others.

In a recent agreement with the DNR, Timber Trails will submit a plan to limit chloride discharges within two months and take action based on that plan by June 2026.

The association also agreed to pay a $500 fine.

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