Camp Troy/Boone Hill Information

 

Camp Troy and Boone Hill
Water and Sanitary Sewers Extension
Project Description

The Unincorporated area in Concord Township of Miami County located along CR 25A south of the city of Troy Corporation line, north of Tipp-Cowlesville Road and west of the Great Miami River has no central water or sewer service.  Approximately 100 properties in the proposed service area utilize private drinking water wells and on-site (Septic Systems) wastewater treatment systems that are regulated by the Miami County Health Department.  In the proposed water and sanitary sewer service area, fecal coliform and E. Coli has been found in about 1/3 of the drinking water samples, according to Health District records.  The Fecal Coliform in the drinking water indicated failing on-site wastewater as well outdated treatment facilities that no longer meet the health department’s requirements.  Replacing the antiquated systems in most cases is not an option as most of the lot sizes in the area are not large enough to allow for a modern on-site wastewater disposal system to be installed as required by the Miami County Health Department.  The proposed public water and wastewater systems will allow for the abandonment of the on-site disposal systems.

The proposed water distribution system will obtain its water from the Troy Water Treatment plant and the sewer collection will transport the wastewater to the Camp Troy Pump Station which will be treated by the City of Troy WWTP.

Camp Troy & Boone Hill Water/Sewer Public Meetings

The Miami County Sanitary Engineering Department will hold a public meeting on Wednesday, February 17th at 6:30 PM at the Concord Township Garage, 1150 Horizon W. Courty, Troy to provide information on the Camp Troy and Boone Hill Water an Sewer Projects.

Under these projects, the Miami County Sanitary Engineering Department proposes to install a water and sewer system to serve residents that live in the subdivisions along South County Road 25-A, Concord Township.

This meeting will provide an opportunity for project neighbors to ask specific questions about the project such as why it is being conducted, who will be affected, and when will the project be conducted.  In addition, in the next couple of weeks, a surveying company will be conducting survey work as a part of this project.

If you have any questions, please call Pat Turnbull at Miami County Sanitary Engineering (937) 440-5653.  Miami County Sanitary Engineering encourages residents along the route to attend this important public meeting.

Map of area:

 

 


Camp Troy and Boone Hill Areas - Water and Sewer Projects

Public Meeting at 6:30 PM February 17th at Concord Township Garage

I. INTRODUCTION

  1. BRIEF PROJECT HISTORY
  2. Most of the current houses in the project area are currently served with private wells and on-site wastewater treatment systems.
  3. Finally, most of the lots have insufficient available space for a replacement system to be constructed.
  4. Approximately 1/3 of the samples tested positive for fecal colliform or e-coli, both an indication that untreated septic waste could be contaminating private wells.
  5. A Water and Sewer Study was conducted in 2005-06 by CESO, which evaluated the need and feasibility of bringing water and sewer to the area.

III. CURRENT STATUS OF PROJECT

  1. The survey and geotechnical work is scheduled to start this month.
  2. Project will be split into two phases to maximize grant dollars and minimize construction costs (East and West).
    1. Total Project Cost has not been determined as some preliminary design work must take place first, but once cost has been determined the project will be paid for with a combination of:
  3. Property Assessments
  4. Tap Fees
    1. Sewer Rates
      1. Grant Money - Currently have $500,000 OPWC grant for West Side of 25-A
      2. State Subsidized Loans

IV. REVIEW OF PROJECT TIMELINE  - West Side of 25-A

  1. Preliminary and Final Design – Sanitary Sewers           February – September 2010
  2. Receive EPA - PTI                                                               November 2010
  3. Bid and Award                                                                     Winter 2010
  4. Construction                                                                         Early 2011 till summer 2011

V. COMMON QUESTIONS AND OPENING IT UP TO QUESTIONS AND ANSEWERS

Answers to Common Questions on Water and Sanitary Sewer Retrofit Projects

Questions have been answered jointly by Pat Turnbull – Miami County Sanitary Engineer’s Office & Jim Luken – Miami County Health District.

1. What are the various agencies involved with this project and what are each of them responsible for?

The Miami County Health District is responsible for all on-lot residential water and wastewater treatment systems.  They are the legal permitting and monitoring body for all private residential on-lot wastewater treatment systems and private well drinking water systems.  In addition, once the public water and sewers become available they govern how the existing on-lot systems should be taken out of service and how the individual house water service lines and sewer laterals must be run to the respective water and sewer mains.  The Health District is a separate political entity from the Board of County Commissioners.  It is governed by a Board of Health, which is appointed by elected officials from the cities, townships and villages in Miami County, excepting Piqua, which has its own separate health department.

The Ohio EPA is responsible for monitoring stream quality and when large amounts of untreated wastewater ends up in drainage ways can order the responsible governmental entity, in this case the Miami County Commissioners, to run public sewers to correct the problems resulting from multiple on-lot system failures.  They are also the permitting and monitoring body of non-residential water and on-lot sewage treatment systems.

The Miami County Sanitary Engineer’s Office is a department of the Miami County Commissioners.  The Miami County Sanitary Engineers Office designs, will construct, own, and operate the drinking water distribution and wastewater collection systems.  They conduct these duties under the Ohio Revised Code for all unincorporated areas of the County.  The tap fee, which serves as the permit to install the water and sewer services, will be included in a property assessment, which also will cover the mainline construction costs that are not funded by grants.  The plumber or homeowner should contact Sanitary Engineering to schedule the inspection of the connection from the house to the mainline.

2.   Why must all properties in the service area tie onto the new public sewer lines?

Under the Ohio Administrative Code Section 3701-29-02 (M), which the Miami County Health District enforces locally – “Whenever a sanitary sewer system becomes accessible to the property, a household sewage system shall be abandoned and the house sewer directly connected to the sewerage system.”

Furthermore, based upon discussions with the Miami County Health District, most of the lot sizes in the proposed service area are too small to install an on-site sewage treatment system that would meet modern Health District Guidelines for a new leaching septic field.  In addition, most of the existing systems have been in existence for more than thirty years, well beyond the normal useful life that the Health District has seen for such systems to adequately treat a household’s waste water.

3. Do I have to tie onto the new public water system?

No.  The Health District does not mandate tying onto the water distribution system for residential properties as it does for the wastewater collection system.  Homeowners will tie onto the water system on an as needed basis, based upon their discretion.  All properties, whether they choose to tie onto the public water or not, will still have to pay their share of the water main line cost in the form of a property assessment.  People that choose to tie onto the public water can keep their well and continue using it for non-potable use, meaning they simply must disconnect the well from the house’s internal plumbing.

4. Who is responsible for installing what and what is all the tap fee and assessment money going to be spent on?

The Water Distribution and Sewer Collection System will be constructed by a General Contractor after the project has been publicly bid.  In addition, the General Contractor will also construct individual grinder stations that are necessary for a few properties that couldn’t be served easily with gravity and the small diameter forcemain from the grinder station to the gravity sewer mainline.

In the case where the property will be served with a sewer gravity line from the house, the homeowner will be responsible for hiring a registered plumbing contractor to run a gravity line from the edge of the roadway right of way to their house.  A homeowner is also permitted to install the house sewer line himself on his own house.  They are still subject to all of the installation standards and must obtain the installation/inspection permit ($30) from the Miami County Health District.

In the case of a grinder pump connection to the gravity sewers, the homeowner will run the gravity line to their grinder station pit and run electric from their house to the grinder station.

For all water services, the homeowner (or their chosen contractor) must install a water service line from a meter pit at the right-of-way to the house.

A twenty year property assessment, which will include the property tap fee for water and sewer, will be utilized to pay for the debt service on a loan that the State of Ohio will finance for the County at below market or 0% interest rates for the water and sewer main lines.  Prior to financing the construction, the County will first maximize the grant dollars and will only proceed with construction, once the lowest cost solution for the properties is found.

5. What is the actual environmental problem that the sewer system will be remedying?

According to Health District records, complaints from property owners, and conversations with Ohio EPA, currently many, of the on-lot septic systems in the project area are not adequately treating the wastewater prior to leaching or discharging the effluent.  According to the Health District, this is due to a couple of factors, primarily the lack of a sufficiently sized disposal area and a system that has exceeded its useful life.  Currently about one third of the wells that have been tested recently in the project area have shown fecal colliform or e-coli contamination.  This is a good indication that malfunctioning septic systems have caused contamination of private wells.

6. I believe that my system works fine and I would like to be exempt from the project, how do I seek an exemption?

If you are currently located on a 10 + acre lot and located in an agricultural district as defined under Ohio Revised Code Section 929.02 you are exempt from the project and the assessment.  I’m not currently aware of any property that has been included in the project area that meets that definition.  If you believe your property qualifies for this exemption, please contact the Miami County Auditor’s office at 937-440-5925 for more information.

If you are not located in an agricultural district, but believe that your house and on-lot system is located on a suitably sized parcel, and that your system is performing well, you may seek an exemption from the Miami County Health District, please contact them at 937-440-5460 for more information.  The criteria for granting variances from the rules are two: You must prove that connecting to the sewer will create an undue hardship (not just expensive, but very expensive relative to a leach field repair) and that there will be no health hazard created as a result of granting the variance.  If the Miami County Health District deems that you are exempt from tying onto the public sewers, you will not have to hook into the sewers; however, you will still need to pay the sewer assessment for your property because having the sewers available is still a benefit to the property.

7. Once the sewer project is complete, how long do I have until I’m required to tie onto the sewers?

The Miami County Health District requires that residential discharging systems, systems that discharge directly to a creek or other surface drainage way, systems that are malfunctioning, or systems that have been illegally tied to storm sewers or drainage tiles, must tie onto public sewers immediately after they become available.  The Health District gives residential properties that are functioning properly and have subsurface leach lines three years to tie on.

The Ohio EPA requires that all commercial, institutional, churches, and generally all non-residential properties must tie onto sewers immediately after they become available.

8. There are people in the project area that simply can not afford this project, is there some form of governmental relief that these people can seek?

The County is in the process of applying for grant money to be utilized in aiding the people that fall into an income range that the Ohio Department of Development defines as a Low to Moderate Income Range.  The County will be conducting a confidential door to door income survey in early 2010, so please participate as this will maximize the County’s grant opportunities.  Families that are living in a house they own (not renting) that fall into the proper range will be eligible to get their hook-up charges (and possibly the assessment depending on the grant) paid for by grant dollars.  The Miami County Economic Development Department will be sending out grant application information regarding this process if we’re successful in obtaining the grant, in the fall of 2011 for the west side of County Road 25-A.

9. What is usually included in the cost of the physical hook-up to the sewer?

Your contractor (or yourself if it is your own house) will include the following tasks in his price:

  1. Purchasing the inspection permit from the Health District ($30).
  2. Digging, installing, bedding the new building sewer line from the house to the tap near the street.
  3. Any plumbing changes necessary inside the house.
  4. Pumping, crushing, and filling the old septic tank and/or drywell.
  5. Putting the backfill over the line and old tank.

You do not have to remove the old leaching lines.

10. Can I connect my sump pump to the new sewer line?

No.  Sump pumps and downspout drains may not be connected to the new sanitary sewer system.  Conversely, any laundries drains that bypassed septic systems must now be connected to the new sanitary sewer system.

11. Will I have to pay for an operational permit from the Health District in the future?

No.

12. If I have further questions, who should I contact?

We’ll periodically be posting project information to our website at www.miamicountysed.com.  You can also contact Pat Turnbull the Miami County Sanitary Engineer at 937-440-5653 regarding the water and sewer project.  If the question pertains to the Health District and your current on-lot water and sewer system you should contact Jeff Koehl at 937-440-5460.