Published: April 18, 2008 04:29 pm            

Right direction — 04/21/08

Forming sanitation district is the best approach in Greenup

Greenup County FiscaGreenup County Fiscal Court members would be wise to heed the advisBryan Kirby e of a consultant by forming a sanitation district to oversee the expansion of sewer lines in the county. The district would be governed by commissioners appointed by the fiscal court from all parts of the district.

Just as important, the commissioners for the sanitation district would have only one task: Improving sewer services. They would have the time needed to devote to that task and could make themselves experts on sewer lines and sewer rates.

Bryan KIrby, who is with Community and Economic Development Associates in Richmond, told the fiscal court that formation of the sanitation district and appointment of the commissioners would assure residents of the district fair representation and give them a voice in such matters as setting rates.

Plans call for running a sewer main from Wurtland’s modern wastewater treatment plant — which was largely funded by Sun Chemical and built to treat waste produced at its pigment plant in Wurtland — to Greenup. That would allow Greenup to mothball its old and inadequate sewage treatment plant. The Wurtland plant has been designated as a regional provider by the state Division of Water.

While the main goal of the line between Greenup and Wurtland is to allow Greenup to shut down its treatment plant, the new line would have the added benefit of enabling the expansion of sewer service to unincorporated parts of Greenup County. Plans call for sewer lines to eventually be extended to serve Lloyd, Smiths Branch and beyond.

The ideal way to accomplish such an expansion is to create a sanitation district. In hindsight, it would have been wiser for Boyd County Fiscal Court to assign the task of extending sewer lines along U.S. 60 either through the expansion of an existing sanitation district or the creation of a new one. If it had done so, perhaps some of the early problems with the new sewer lines could have been avoided. Boyd County Fiscal Court now is negotiating with members of an existing sanitation district with an eye toward merging.

With all the other projects the county has going on, members of Boyd County Fiscal Court soon discovered they lacked both the time and the expertise to oversee sewer service. Boyd Judge-Eexcutive William “Bud” Stevens would like to get the county out of the sewer business. It is best to turn those tasks over to a sanitation district.

Greenup County Judge-Executive Bobby Carpenter told Kirby members of the fiscal court were receptive to creating a sanitation district to oversee the project. While many details still need to be worked out before such a district is created, it definitely is the right way to go.

        

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