Sonoma Valley Sanitation District now requires sewer lateral fixes for older pipes

County requiring ‘lateral' inspections; loans available for those flush out of funds|

The Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District last week approved an ordinance requiring property owners who have sewer laterals at least 30 years old will need to have them inspected and, if necessary, repaired, to help prevent the sewer overflows and other problems that occur during heavy rains.

Since more than 70 percent of the District's customers are in homes or businesses over three decades old, it's bound to be a big project that affects many properties in the Valley. The District stretches from Fetters Hot Springs to Schellville and includes not only the Springs communities but the City of Sonoma as well.

Recognizing the scale of the problem, the District has authorized a loan program to help Sonoma Valley residents pay for inspection, maintenance and repair of sewer laterals – the pipe from the 'smallest room in the house' to the nearest sewer main. The loan package will allow owners to borrow up to $10,000 from the county for their required repairs, payable over a 10-year period though their property tax bill. (A separate $1,000 rebate program is also being readied, part of the settlement with the Regional Water Quality Control Board, and not connected to the new ordinance.)

Homeowners may not always be aware that maintaining such subterranean plumbing is their responsibility, at least to their property line, and the bill for repair can be a shock. Many older homes were built with iron or terra cotta (clay) pipes, which over time break down and become infiltrated by roots from nearby trees, or break due to earth movements and slippage.

Often this is a hidden problem, and without direct repercussions – until a sewer line backs up, and the homeowner has to make an emergency call to a plumber to clean out the lateral. But the problem has proved an expensive one for the District, most recently in 2015 when the state Regional Water Quality Control Board of San Francisco, found significant failures in the District's collection system. The Control Board itemized 46 sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) incidents in five years, and levied a whopping $732,300 in penalties. The problem of a faulty sewer line isn't one of localized spillage, but 'infiltration and inflow' from rainwater into the sewer system though faulty pipes.

'Studies in other areas have found that leaky sewer laterals contribute to about 40 percent of the water that comes through the system during rainstorms,' said Barry Dugan, of the Sonoma County Water Agency.

This additional flow can overtax the main sewer line, causing not just sewage overflow but inefficient sanitary treatment at the district's Sonoma Valley Water Treatment Plant – which sits at the terminus of 135 miles of the system's gravity-flow pipelines.

On the heels of the ordinance requiring inspection of all laterals 30 years or older, the District is starting a program to check neighborhoods most likely to have flawed laterals – a targeted inspection of some 200 properties a year.

'We know there are locations where these overflows occur when we get heavy rainfall,' said Dugan. 'That just happened last week and it happened in December, where we had heavy rainfall and there were a few overflows.'

The inspection program should start in about six months, Dugan said. He noted that of the District's 10,600 connections, about 7,800 are over 30 years old. 'It's going to take a while to get through the entire inventory of housing,' he said. 'But this is one way to approach it incrementally, and make a difference.'

Homeowners will receive notice that the District will be coming onto their property, albeit underground, by means of a sewer video inspection line.

'We'll notify the property owner once the inspection is done, and let them know the results,' said Dugan. Although a contractor yet to be chosen will conduct the video inspections in the District's program, the homeowner is free to choose any plumbing contractor for the repair – or a pre-emptive inspection.

Inspection of a sewer lateral can be done at any time, though it usually follows a clean of a clogged lateral. Boden Plumbing is one of several Sonoma plumbers who currently conduct such video inspection – and who can repair or replace a damaged lateral.

'We use a snake to clean out a clogged lateral, and if there's roots on the router when it comes up, then we go down there with a camera,' said Terry Boden, of the 25-year old company.

Root-infiltrated pipes can be difficult to completely repair, short of taking out the offending tree or replacing the entire lateral. But several means of pipe replacement are possible.

'There are lots of different avenues to approach different kinds of problems,' said Boden. 'There is no black and white, everything's kind of gray out there.'

For information, contact barry.dugan@scwa.ca.gov, or 547-1930.

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