U.S. Water News Online
ERIE, Pa. -- Hundreds of Erie County residents may soon pay up to $2,000 each to undo illegal sewage hookups -- many of them installed long before homeowners bought their houses.
The illegal hookups are sending rain water, which doesn't need to be treated, into the Millcreek Sewer Authority system. During heavy rains, the extra water causes the system's pump station to overflow, causing raw sewage to back up in homes and businesses.
The authority said it spends about $700,000 a year to ``clean'' rain water that doesn't need to be treated. Roughly $50 of the $200 annual sewage bill paid by residents pays to treat rain water.
Sometimes the overflows cause sewage to be sent into Walnut Creek, which empties into Lake Erie. From time to time, the Millcreek Sewer Authority has purposely released raw sewage into the creek to ease the overflow -- a solution that state environmental officials no longer tolerate.
The authority has already notified 100 homeowners of the problem, and as many as 3,900 hundred residents and businesses in neighboring Millcreek and Summit townships will have to fix the problems in the next several years.
The illegal hookups were generally made when homes were built, sometimes 40 or 50 years ago, which has angered homeowners who have to pay for a problem they didn't cause and didn't know about.
``I did nothing wrong,'' said homeowner Paul Iesue, who must pay at least $2,000 for a sump pump at the house he bought seven years ago. The house was built in 1968.
``If it was built properly it should have been inspected (by the township) when it was built. They want to come after us to rectify a situation that should have been done a long time ago,'' Iesue said.
``Forty or 50 years ago, contractors put in illegal hookups because it was the easy thing to do at the time and, that long ago, they didn't understand the problems they could cause,'' said George Riedesel, manager of the authority.
``And, quite frankly, 40 or 50 years ago, it was more acceptable to spew sewage into the lake. We've become more environmentally sensitive.''
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