Part of Cedar Rapids’ sanitary sewer issues may be you

It hasn't yet been 30 days since heavy rains and flash flooding in Cedar Rapids caused a long list of property owners, who experienced sufficient water damage or sewage backups, to register for a special city pickup of ruined household items.

In total, 633 reported damage, 122 of whom had sewage in the basement, according to city figures.

About a dozen of those from three spots where problems were particularly concentrated told the City Council last week in emotional and sometimes sarcastic and angry terms that the city needed to fix a sewer system that has failed them.

The city's is a dual system — 667.6 miles of sanitary sewer and 512.3 miles of storm sewer. Complaints came about both.

Kayt Conrad and Donald Klingenberger, of 1807 Blake Blvd. SE, told the City Council last week that it should spend less time talking about economic development incentives for businesses and pay more attention to homeowners.

'When is the city going to make an investment in us?' Conrad asked.

Gerald Willey spoke for water- and sewage-damaged homeowners in the 1500 blocks of A and B avenues NE when he said he never thought he'd say this about an often-maligned federal agency, 'but I think we need FEMA in here.'

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, though, isn't coming. The flash-flooding damage touched too few homes to qualify for FEMA intervention, City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said.

Private lines

The city already had embarked on a pilot investigation of its sanitary sewer system in a section of northeast Cedar Rapids generally bounded by Old Marion Road NE, 32nd Street NE, 40th Street NE and First Avenue East, when the late June flash flooding happened.

City officials here — as have those elsewhere — have talked for years about how stormwater and ground water enter the enclosed sanitary sewer system at times of heavy rain. That can lead to sewage backups in basements and to overwhelmed sanitary sewer lines, which pop off manholes and send sewage into the city's separate stormwater sewer system and then to the river.

Since 1999 and particularly since 2003, Cedar Rapids officials have shifted their focus to prevent 'infiltration and inflow' in the city's part of the sanitary sewer system so officials don't spend most of their time and money simply reacting to problems, said Dave Wallace, the city's sewer utility engineering manager.

The work, he said, is ongoing.

In the past 15 years, Wallace said, 75 miles of sanitary sewer lines have been replaced or rehabilitated. Every year staffers clean out one-third of the lines and inspect one-tenth of the system using video equipment.

He estimated the city has spent $30 million since 1999 on its sanitary sewer system, half or more of which has come from FEMA to repair what was damaged in the Flood of 2008. FEMA is funding $20 million to $30 million for work yet to be done.

However, what the city largely has not done in tandem is to focus on problems with the sewer lines on private property, which is what the pilot investigation is intended to do.

'There's been a reluctance to want to get on people's private property because it is private property,' said Dave Elgin, the city's public works director and city engineer.

The northeast Cedar Rapids investigation of about 500 homes is designed to identify infiltration and inflow — I & I — in private sanitary sewer lines. That happens when there are cracks in the lines, or when groundwater and rainwater are captured by sump pumps, foundation drains and downspouts and sent by direct connection into a drain or sanitary sewer line rather than into the yard or out to the street and into the separate stormwater system.

'When you add all that stuff together, we can't manage that kind of inflow in our system,' Elgin said. 'So we have to get on private property and start to manage it there.'

According to HDR Engineering Inc. in Cedar Rapids, which is conducting the pilot investigation, three-fourths of the liquid in the city's sanitary sewer system during a peak rain event — such as the one in late June — is caused by infiltration and inflow, as measured by the spike in water that ends up traveling through the system to the sewage treatment plant.

One-third of the plant's treatment capacity in a year is taken up treating water that doesn't belong in the sanitary sewer system, HDR said in its April technical memorandum to the city.

In instances of sewage backups in basements, Jon Durst, the city's sewer superintendent, said it is useful to 'un-package' the term 'sewage.'

Most people consider it sewage because it's coming out of the sanitary sewer line.

But the majority of it is rainwater that has infiltrated or flowed into the sanitary sewer line, Durst said.

'So it's still sewage, but the cause is because of excessive rainfall,' he said.

'Unintended consequences'

It has been illegal in Cedar Rapids for more than 30 years to tie a sump pump, foundation drain or downspout into the sanitary sewer system.

'They didn't fully understand the long-term impacts to the (sanitary sewer) collection system,' Wallace said. Durst called it 'good intentions with unintended consequences.'

In the pilot investigation, representatives of the city are going door to door, asking permission to inspect properties to see which ones may have an inappropriate connection to the city's sanitary sewer system. In an initial foray into the area, the city estimated that more than 20 percent of the properties have issues that needed to be resolved.

The investigation also includes inspections of manhole outlets in the city's part of the system, and in late August will feature a test that sends smoke into the system to see where it comes out. In an ideal sanitary sewer system, smoke would emerge only from vent ducts on people's homes.

But the test likely will identify foundation drains, sump pumps and downspouts and, if the ground is dry enough, the test may identify leaks in pipes, Wallace said.

The data from the pilot investigation area will allow the city to make a cost-benefit analysis to help officials decide how they want to police unwanted connections to the system and what incentives they might provide for property owners to comply.

The data also will help officials calculate how much money they want to spend, for example, to enlarge the city's system of pipes and the treatment capacity at the sewage treatment plant and how much they might spend to provide incentives for property owners to do more, Durst said.

'We want to manage those peak flows without having sewer overflows or basement backups,' Wallace added. 'So what is the best investment that the city can make to have that happen?'

In its April report to the city, consultant HDR looked at 20 other Iowa cities that have I & I programs in place. Five, including Des Moines, provide incentives to homeowners who voluntarily comply and disconnect unwanted connections to the sanitary sewer system.

In the wake of the Flood of 2008, Cedar Rapids began providing a $500 incentive to disconnect a foundation drain from the sanitary sewer system. But only one person has taken advantage of the program — former City Council member Brian Fagan, to set an example, according to city records. The city also provides up to $800 — it had been $500 — for residents who want to install a valve to block a sewer backup, and 30 people have taken advantage of that incentive since 2008.

Even so, the city has heard complaints from some that the valve they installed didn't work in the recent storms, to which the city has responded that better performance may be tied to higher-priced valves installed by a plumber.

Among the 15 other cities that HDR looked at with I & I programs, all require mandatory participation from property owners, some with partial incentives such as Dubuque and some, such as Iowa Falls, that add surcharges to utility bills as a disincentive.

Even so, the HDR report suggests why some cities have been skittish about approaching property owners to talk about infiltration and inflow.

'Eliminating (I & I) from private sources ...

requires a recognition that the public health and environmental benefits and/or cost savings associated with private source infiltration and inflow removal are worth the public outcry that can occur with the required inspections and enforcement on private property,' HDR states.