LAKE COUNTY >> Lake County Special Districts released a preliminary design report on the future sewer system project in Anderson Springs.
The report, which was released on March 6 and completed by Waterworks Engineers, analyzed two likely options for a system that would ultimately flow down from the community, run parallel with Highway 175 for a few miles, and end up at the Middletown Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Due to California regulations, a sewer system is the only viable option special districts came up with so approximately 200 homes can be properly rebuilt near Anderson Creek.
The concept initially stirred some backlash as many homeowners used on-site septic tanks before the Valley Fire, but administrator Mark Dellinger said many people changed their minds on the matter.
“I think that’s turned around,” Dellinger said. “People believe that this is one of the ways to bring the community back.”
The first and most expensive option is a conventional gravity sewer system. It will cost nearly $11.8 million, require deep excavation, 12 crossings underneath the creek and would require more than 50 residences to pump up to the proposed site of the sewer main via ejector pumps going to eight lift stations.
The ejector may become a problem if the power goes out, the analysis found, as the small community is subject to power outages.
“These homes will be required to discontinue water use to avoid the backup of sewage into the home,” it said. “This is because ejector pumps and connected piping provide very little storage [40 gallons].”
On the other hand, the Septic Tank Effluent Pump (STEP) Pressurized Sewer is estimated at $7.3 million and would require an average excavation at 2.5 feet. Furthermore, the main would be connected to the community’s bridges for the 12 creek crossings as the pressurized PVC pipes four inches in diameter.
Properties in the system would have their own septic tank and in some instances would have a common one with multiple homes. These tanks would have an effluent pump and would send waste to the main via a 2-inch lateral pipe.
For these reasons, both Waterworks Engineers and Special Districts recommend that the STEP project be built.
“Construction of the STEP system will also be much easier than a conventional gravity system and will allow many major construction issues to be avoided or mitigated,” the report claimed. “This will decrease, if not eliminate, the likelihood of the nearby creeks being polluted from untreated or partially treated wastewater.”
However, the engineers did note one disadvantage to their recommendation: high operation and maintenance costs to the owner as they are responsible for tank maintenance, requiring solid waste pumping every five years and routine care of the effluent pump biannually.
Now that this preliminary report is finished, the goal is to find grant funding from the state but recently that has been challenging for the department.
According to compliance coordinator Jan Coppinger, the state doesn’t consider Middletown and its surrounding area to be economically disadvantaged given the census data. The reason for this, she claimed, was that a significant amount of people don’t complete a census form.
“People are reluctant to participate,” she said. “Thus we are getting rejected for every grant we apply.”
To prove that the area is economically disadvantaged, especially after the Valley Fire, will have a third party like the Rural Community Assistance Corporation to conduct another survey.
“We need them to understand to help us get free money,” Coppinger added. “If not, we will have to use financing and that’ll be passed on to the ratepayer.”
She and Dellinger are also leveraging the attention Lake County has received due to the fire. Yet, he said, nothing is guaranteed.
“There is heightened interest due to the Valley Fire and will take advantage of that as much as we can,” Dellinger said.
