BY TERRY FLYNN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
BURLINGTON -- Boone County officials have beentold it will cost up to $40,000 to repair sewer lines in the Burl Park subdivision off Ky. 18, although the sewer system is technically a private operation. County Administrator Jim Collins told Boone Fiscal Court members at Tuesday'scaucus that the county administration had been trying to bring pressure on the developers of Burl Park, one of the older subdivisions in the county, to upgrade the sewage system.
Although an old self-contained treatment plant is gone, Sanitation District No. 1 won't assume maintenance of the sewer system at Burl Park until the repairs and upgrades are completed.
"When we began to apply pressure on the Burl Park Sanitation Association (begun by the developers nearly 30 years ago), they filed bankruptcy," Mr. Collins said.
"We had wanted to negotiate with the sanitation district to work together and both finance the repairs so the district could take over the system," he said. "But the recent heavy rain resulted in more problems in the subdivision, again forcing sewage into basements. We made the decision as a county to help these people now."
County Commissioners Shirley Meihaus and Harold Campbell and Judge-executive Ken Lucas agreed with Mr. Collins' decision to bring in county work crews to fix the sewer problems.
Mr. Lucas emphasized, however, that he wanted the county to do whatever it could to obtain payment from the developer for county funds spent on the sewers.
County attorney Larry Crigler said he would look at the situation to determine what the county's legal position was in the matter. "Because it is a private sewer system, I don't know if the county can be a part of the issue," Mr. Crigler said. "We'll have to see where we can go with this."
Several residents of the subdivision spoke to fiscal court members in February about repeated problems with sewage backup in homes and yards because of the faulty sewer lines. John Gompper, who lives on Carlton Drive, described how his family endured raw sewage in their basement on Christmas night last year.
The sanitation district has assumed maintenance of all other private treatment systems in the county.
