Battle over stormwater taking shape in Newhall

NEWHALL - A water battle with a looming deadline is dividing the Benton County community of Newhall.

The fight is over storm water runoff, and it centers on whether some homes in the community of 875 are illegally diverting that water into the town's sanitary sewer system. The Newhall City Council passed an ordinance in 2009 requiring that every home be inspected for improper drainage hookups. It's illegal under both Iowa and U.S. law to connect groundwater drainage to city sanitary sewers.

Mayor-elect Jan Mattson said the problem is most obvious at the city's sewage lagoons on the west edge of town. After heavy rains or snows, he said, the lagoons swell with about the same amount of sewage you'd expect to see in Vinton. That nearby town is about six times the size of Newhall.

Mattson said that's due to groundwater getting into the city's sanitary sewer pipes - and once it's there, it must be treated, at extra expense to the community and taxpayers.

“Everything that goes through there has to be treated,” he said. “It's costing the city extra dollars for treatment and labor, so we're just trying to get in compliance.”

Mattson said the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has criticized Newhall over the excess release of sewage water. It wants the town to either build a much larger treatment facility or control the groundwater getting into the current system.

City leaders agree that some of the groundwater is getting into the sewage system through breaks in sewer pipes that run under the streets. But leaders also think a large amount is coming from gutters, drain tiles around the foundations of homes and sump pumps that are illegally connected to the town's sewer lines. That's what prompted the calls for inspections of every home and corrections if problems are found.

The Newhall ordinance set a Dec. 31, 2011, deadline to contact the city to arrange a free plumbing inspection. But some residents oppose the requirement because they're concerned about the potential cost of any fixes the inspector might order, and they're worried that the city will shut off water service to homes that aren't inspected by the end of the year.

Gerald Gessner, a member of the City Council, used his own home as an example. When it was built in the 1960s, he said, the city actually wanted owners to hook up every drain to sanitary sewer lines. That federal plumbing rule changed in the early 1970s.

The drain tile hooked into the sewer line runs under Gessner's garage foundation and a patio. He estimates it might take $25,000 to $30,000 to fix the problem.

Opponents of the inspections, he said, are “threatened all the time we'll get our water shut off because we're not doing this. And that is ridiculous that they want to shut water off on people.”

Fellow council member Bill Much disagreed.

“We're not going to cut anybody's water off,” he said. “Basically, the deadline was put in there to try to get people moving.”

Much's home also had an illegal hookup of drain tiles. But he got a contractor to dig up and cap the line and plans to install a sump pit in his basement on his own. He figures the total cost will run about $800.

Much said the city has set aside grant money to help lower-income residents pay to correct any illegal hookups. He also said the city will simply send out letters to those who haven't arranged for inspections by the Dec. 31 deadline. Any threat of a water shut-off, Much said, is just a last resort.

But opponents don't put a lot of faith in that statement.

Gessner said several people opposed to the storm water connection rules ran for the council this fall and won. He expects those new members to join him in trying to revise the ordinance when the next council begins meeting in January.