City ponders new program to deal with private sewer connections

Edmonton is setting homeowners up for a shock when it comes to fixing private sewer connections, councillors were told Friday.

Replacing damaged sewer lines between a person’s home and property line can cost as much as replacing a roof, roughly $10,000, say drainage officials. But the city has been so quick to respond to citizen complaints in the past — to clean out the pipes and absorb the cost if it’s unclear where the issue was — now people just assume all sewer pipes are a city issue.

It makes for very unsatisfied customers when it’s clearly a private issue and they get stuck with a bill.

“A lot of other cities say: ‘Call a plumber,’” said Chris Ward, branch manager for utility operations. “The City of Edmonton has never taken that approach. We come out, we try to figure out what the problem is. We’ll clean the sewer.”

They even created a program to try to convince homeowners to save money and upgrade their own portion of the line when the city was in the neighbourhood. It’s cheaper for the homeowner than upgrading the pipes on their own. But almost no one took them up on it. Committee cut $2.3 million from that budget Friday and reallocated the remaining $1.5 million to figure out a better solution. They aim to relaunch a new incentive program for 2018.

“There seems to be a bit of: ‘I can see my roof, therefore I know I need to replace my roof. I can’t see my sewer. Therefore, unless it fails, I will not do anything about it.’ That’s a concern we have,” said Ward.

Many old pipes were built with laminated tar paper or clay tile. Several councillors had anecdotes from residents shocked when they got the bill for repairs, and others worried seniors on fixed incomes might be ill-prepared financially when the sewer line gets so bad it collapses. They asked officials to come back with a full report on the scope of the problem and possible solutions.

Homeowners can call 311 to get city officials to check the state of their private sewer line, but it will cost $334 if a scope is needed.

“For me, it just goes back to expectations,” said Coun. Andrew Knack, whose mother-in-law called the city for a drainage issue and was shocked to see the $334-sewer cleaning fee added to her utility bill. But as for switching tactics and simply telling homeowners to call a plumber: “That might be a bit of a leap from where we’ve been. We might need to slowly move ourselves in that direction.”

There seems to be a bit of: … ‘I can’t see my sewer. Therefore, unless it fails, I will not do anything about it.’ That’s a concern.