Mark Sanders And Bob Peterson 8-11-26

All right, Mark Bernie Sanders is the interim director of the Division of Water Quality. And this came up on the show last week about the EPA consent decree and the need that we had to basically overhaul our sewer system, our sanitary sewer system. And storm sewer system. Now, the water that goes through the storm sewer system is not treated. It goes right into waterways. The sanitary sewer system carries wastewater from homes, businesses, and industrial sites to treatment plants. This is the water from your toilet, your sink, your shower, your dishwasher, the water you used to clean with. But for decades, the two systems had nine known interconnections. Now, these are places where sanitary sewage or human waste mixed with stormwater. And then heavy rain would combine the flow and it would overwhelm the system causing millions of gallons of untreated raw sewage to go right into our creeks and streams. So citizens force this. some 20 or so years ago, as I mentioned back in, it was actually 2008. The lawsuit was filed. The EPA and the Commonwealth of Kentucky filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit against the LFUCG back in November of 2006. It was February 19th of 2008 that Mayor Jim Newberry, this was such a big problem that the mayor then, Newberry, delivered his first ever televised address from the mayor's office. And the council approved a consent decree that afternoon. So where are we? And Mark's going to fill us in on where we are some 20 or so years later. Good afternoon, Mark. How are you? Good, sir. I've got Bob Peterson here with me as well. He's the Remedial Measures Program Manager who's overseeing all the consent decree projects. But nope, you're correct. The city entered into the consent decree January 11 or January of 2011. And since then, we've been hard at work on correcting. Up to now 111 century sewer overflows. We've got 89 of them abated, which is about 80, 81% that so far has been completed since we've started. Of all the projects that's remaining, whenever we... Whenever the consent decree was, I guess, into there was 82 original projects, and we are down to the final 16. We've got six in construction with the final 10 in a planning, design.

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Yeah, that whenever they started, there was some combined over combined sewer, but now it's kind of, that's part of what we've been doing on removing. And the work that still needs to be done, was this in the original decree? Has there been some problems that maybe new development is uncovered or maybe some new projects that have come along since then? Are we still working on the original dozens of projects that we were assigned to do? Mostly we are working on the original ones. There have been a couple modifications where the projects that were done work better than expected and eliminated the need for some of the original ones. But at the same time, there were other areas of the city. As we uncovered stuff, we found other issues. So we have traded out a couple projects. I think it's only like three or four that have been changed since the original. R&P. Has this work included, I guess, infrastructure improvement? Hasn't? I mean, we've been hearing about that more and more, not only in cities in the United States, but around the world where water infrastructure and some of this has been allowed to deteriorate. We haven't gotten to it. Have we, I guess in a way, this has allowed us to be able to keep up with the infrastructure of our sewer system and our stormwater system. Would that be accurate? That at the same time, we're improving that infrastructure so that we may not have to go down in there later. Yes, these are a lot of system improvements. We've made improvements at both the treatment plants out in the pump stations, out in the system, and in the lines feeding each. How many people have to work on this kind of stuff in any given time? Are these city employees mostly doing the work, or do we contract this work out? Most of it is contracted out to construction companies. Depending upon what's going on at the time, anywhere from three to about 10 people more directly with the city working on it to keep up with all the projects that are going on. Mark, I would think a lot of cities, we can't be the only city that's faced this sort of thing over the last couple of decades, are we? No, many cities have very similar consent decrees. And so, yeah, we are by far not the only one. Yeah, there were 14 just in Kentucky when they started. And Kentucky is not the only state. Almost every state has the same issue. Have you all run into cost escalation over the years? You know, the cost of everything has changed dramatically since this all started. Has that been an issue trying to keep the cost within budget when you're dealing with cost escalation? Yeah, that was part, you know, that was part of the driver on getting the date push back just because of, like, you know, whenever we got post-COVID and kind of numbers started escalating. We didn't want to just start doing projects just to do them. So that's the reason why we was real cautious on the bid that we were receiving.

But currently to date, we are actually under projected estimates. We were initially right now at this stage projected around $492 million, but we're at $409 million. So we're still coming in under what was initially thought. So we're kind of, we're still, you know, still have her head down. You know, job's not finished. So we still got the. get through the tunnel, but we're kind of in a good spot right now. The cost of this decades of deferred maintenance, about two years after, I guess, all this started or this EPA decree was revealed, we citizens and ratepayers started paying a sewer fee. Sewer fees increased. They were voted on just two days after Mayor Newberry's televised event. Environmental and energy costs now represent 22% of the city's annual budget. There was some community development block grant funding that was diverted from neighborhood projects to do some of these sewer repairs. And we all started getting a Lexer bill, which I imagine we're going to be receiving into perpetuity. Would that be right? I mean, you guys may be the wrong ones to ask about that. Mike Drop, hosted by former Navy CEO, Mike Ridland. What is your take? Was it what you expected? Oh, it was the best thing ever. It was something I always wanted to do. If you show me a clear goal, I'm like, okay, I can do that. Master Chief. He's like, you realize there's about 1% chance that you make it through. 1%. That's all I need Master Chief. My platoon went home early, and I just went up to my chief, and I was like, I'm not going home. Turns out I'm staying. That's when we go to war. Yeah, I was like, okay, I could get used to this. Mike Drop, follow and listen on your favorite platform. Washington, D.C., get ready. The world's best are coming to Audi Field on October 10th. U.S. soccer's women's national team takes on Spain in a battle between the top two teams in the world. Watch Olympic gold medalists face the reigning FIFA Women's World Cup champions in a star-studded showdown featuring Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith. One night. Two global powers. One unforgettable match. Get your tickets now at us soccer.com. But we're going to keep paying for this even after the job's finished, aren't we? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This will continue on. It's kind of just like your water bill and other utilities that you'd receive. Yeah. It'll just be something we all. I'll contend with. All they're going to have so that's not going to. I don't know. I can't remember if that was pitched at the time as something. Well, well, we need to pay for this project. You know, some insinuation that it would go away. But those things hardly ever go away. Go ahead, Bob. One thing that people have to remember is at one point in time, Kentucky American Water used to bill for the city sewer, and they would do the billing and then pay the city.

around when the Lexerb bill started up, Kentucky American decided they no longer wanted to do the billing for the city. So that's a lot of what it is. People were paying, the rates did go up, but they were paying a bill. It's just that they were paying it with their water bill at the time, and now it's separate. Now it's a separate bill. Let me get back to one other thing. I'll let you guys go about the infrastructure part of all this. Do we still have a lot of cast iron water mains in our system? That would be a Kentucky-American Water. Yeah. That's an American Water. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. So those guys, those are the guys that would be handling that because that's something else that, well, at least Charlie Martin. You guys know who Charlie is, obviously. And when he was discussing sewer progress back in June of 2022, Kentucky American Water presented a parallel infrastructure crisis saying that our oldest mains date back to the 1880s. You know, cast iron mains caused the most breaks. And it would, you know, if you replaced them all, the entire system in Lexington, it would take something like 377 years. Now, in some Lexington neighborhoods, I guess both the water mains and the sewer lines are being replaced. Just like we were talking about before, some of this has made infrastructure improvement part of the process, which is good. But, you know, we're going to be improving and working on these things underground for a long time. Yeah, you know, and that's something even, you know, not maybe to the degree in speed that we're doing right now, but, you know, infrastructure improvements will continue on past the content decree, you know, because stormlines and sanitary lines and water lines and, you know, everything has a shelf flight and, you know, break, so it, you know, it requires the utility to go in and fix and correct and repair. Any kind of ribbon cutting or anything, guys, when this is over? We're going to do something special in this city? Have a parade? I don't know. Have a block party? More to come on that. Once we get there. Okay. Well, thanks guys for working so hard on this. Mark Bernie Sanders, the interim director of the Division of Water Quality, along with Bob Peterson from the LFUCG. Thanks, gentlemen, for your time today. Thanks, sir. Appreciate it. Getting an update on the EP. Mike Drop, hosted by former Navy SEAL Mike Ridland. How would you characterize your prowess? I'd say my style is that I just kind of outwork everybody until I get there because I'm not a quitter. It's just you. And that's yourself. There's everything else's team-oriented. The motivation, it was a sort of anger at myself for being weak. That ends up being the driving factor. That anger, that pride, that ego, I think it's a muscle. It gets stronger. When you take that voice seriously, you start to change your life. Mike Drop, follow and listen on your favorite platform.