PORTLAND OREGON HAS THE LOW COST SOLUTION TO NW DENVER’s SEWER FAILURE PROBLEMS & WATER CONTAMIANTION WOES

In 1998 Portland’s Clean Water Service (that’s their equivalent to Denver’s WMD) fired their CIPP sewer rehabilitation contractors and started doing the work “in house”. CWS purchased a turn-key sewer rehabilitation operation from LMK Enterprises for $250,000.00 and started lining the Portland sewer mains and homeowner’s private line all the way up to the home. This operation proved to reduce city sewer maintenance cost, treatment cost for groundwater that was entering into the system, prevent breakage of the homeowners piping in the easement, and reduce bacterial clean-up cost so much that in 2002 CWS purchased another installation truck and started keeping city crews busy 24/7 in lining operations. The charge to homeowners…FREE.

In fact with the elimination of the CIPP installation contractors and their 70% market standard markup made this all possible.

In the EPA January 2004 publication The Sanitary Sewer Overflow Guidance Manual, the EPA held up Portland CWS as the nation’s gold standard for best practices and best methods of the required sewer rehabilitation. Sewer rehabilitation of this 1^st generation clay pipe sewer trenches in required by the EPA but WMD instead has refused to follow those recommendations. 

To give you an idea what WMD’s current program may cost Denver taxpayers there is the example of Nashville TN Overflow Abatement Program (OAP 1990-1999).Using contractors Nashville lined or replaced 125 miles of sewer main at the cost of 60 million dollars. However the project included the lining of 10,000 private laterals. The use of multiple contractors (not just one like WMD) brought the cost of lining the lower lateral to the end of the public easement (the alley) to just $2200.00.

That’s a lot less expensive than a $5,000 tap replacement and more ecologically sound as it prevents years of groundwater contamination. While CIPP lateral lining product are available in the Denver metro area and have been for several years WMD won’t allow the homeowner to apply them to the lower lateral and protect the tap connection joint. That’s just one of the many quirky little secrets WMD keeps. Conversely while CIPP lateral lining is required to complete the CIPP system WMD doesn’t install it for the homeowner, which causes the problems to shift to the private tap connection and essentially causes or allows the homeowners pipe connection to break.

Most NW Denverites have written the problem off as the “city sewer system is just old” and shun the thought because in the back of their minds they know it going to cost a lot of money. “There’s nothing we can do about it” and “if complain the city will just raise our taxes”. One resident who I spoke too just recently was very unappreciative of me handing out flyers on her block. Like many in the area she had put up her house for sale and didn’t want the negative publicity. Of course the negative feedback I received was from people who haven’t been hit by the “tap failure trap” …yet…or who are leaving. But I’ll bet that no sooner than they have a look at the video of the sewer main (which WMD shows no one) and see the precarious condition that the main and their tap is their minds will change. That’s why, (on my web site) I’ve included instructions on how to get WMD’ sewer main inspections and their ‘collapse risk assessment” report. It only cost $30.00!!

Whether they are leaving the neighborhood or not; the majority of them I’ve spoken with don’t realize they have no choice. That choice has been removed from them by WMD. This 50 to 70 million dollar sewer rehab project to rehab the 100+/- miles of sewer trenches in NW Denver is already under way. It is being imposed upon WMD

Unfortunately, because of public utilities wasteful spending, the Federal grant program the EPA created that would have paid for this all was canceled in 1990. The grant program was replaced by the CWSRF which essentially a loan program. The CWSRF was specifically designed to make WW utilities more responsible for their spending. That means whatever WMD spends and however they spend it WE GOT TO PAY THE MONEY BACK. In effect the Federal government is loaning us our tax to WMD who then pays Insituform its 70% markup on work that actually doesn’t stop water contamination and causes our private taps to fail… So not only do the 500 to 700 homeowner’s caught in the tap trap get to pay 2.5 to 3.5 million a year for replacement everyone gets to pay the 50 to 70 million that WMD project will cost us back to federal government. While Portland instead has solved the problem ten years now and proved that their system pays for itself. Why do you think the EPA recommends it? WMD’s system lines the pockets of their CIPP contractor more than it lines our sewer mains!