08-20-18 Health and Public Saftey & Utilities

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®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Larry Miller, 1109 Culver Place, stated, I worked for the Sewer Department for seventeen (17) years, but I can tell you that the sewers are in bad shape in the City of South Bend. The sewer that runs in front of my house is concrete, but it is deteriorating due to the chemicals running through our sewer lines. There are rocks falling down that are as big as baseballs. Roosevelt Street has a flat sewer line. We've reported it, took pictures of it over and over. When you put new material over old material, it weakens the old material. When you connect new pipes to old pipes, it weakens them. The lines are all bad. I've complained and talked about it, but it got me nowhere. Seven(7)or eight(8)years ago,I was told that we have$7,000 to come work on these lines. What happened to the money? They were supposed to hire a firm out of Chicago. One(1)of these days a school bus.is going to go down that street and its going to cave in. Larry Cook was my boss at the time, Sam Hensley was the Commissioner. They didn't believe us that it was going to cave in. They paved Main Street, then it caved in and they had to redo it all over again. Councilmember Tim Scott stated,Representing Riverside Drive and Keller Park,what we saw was not only cracks with clear water coming in, but there was black sewage in every home in Keller Park. Everyone I talked to had that issue. I am a true believer in Global Warming. I lived in St. Louis in 1993 during the flood, moved here in 1994 and they've had two (2) events down there that were just as big as 1993. If we have to put flapper valves on the pipes to the river, I suggest that. I do want to make the chairs aware that we have an event going on along Portage Avenue from Oakwood to Riverside. From the rains we've had in the last two (2) weeks, we have sewer backing up into homes of people who have lived there for thirty-eight (38) years and are now having issues. They are coming out to start looking at cleaning those lines. It's a trend. It's not only running down Portage, but it is on Oakwood and Riverside. I am still on top of that and working with the City. That is on very high ground, so there are some instances where we need to stay on top of our sewers and look at it. Councilmember Tim Scott left the meeting at 7:30 p.m. Dawn Hopkins,558 Marquette Avenue, stated,I want to state for the record that I have great pause about your backflow program, knowing the percentage of backflow valves that absolutely failed in the 2018 event. I would not have spent my money on a backflow valve if I had known that I would be doing the same thing eighteen(18)months later. I felt it was a horrible waste of money, and I felt betrayed by my investment. I thought we would be safe, we won't have sewage in our house. We rebuilt and won't have to do this again. No, we had the same groundwater issue again, coming into our toilet. We did not quite have the three (3) foot geyser coming out of our toilet that we had in 2016. It was just spilling over the edge. At least it filtered the water enough that it was brown water rather than chunks of feces in our basement. Some of our neighbors had three (3)feet,we had about eighteen(18)inches. Still,if it is ground water,it's one thing,if it is sewage, it's another. This is a detriment to our public health and our riverways, and I want us to address the sewer system for the betterment of public health, and for the betterment of the ecology of the St. Joe River. Laura Klepper, 645 Ostemo Pl., stated, Thank you to the Committee for allowing us to speak. I am a scientist and I had the water levels in our basement tested. It had E.coli levels that were high enough to beyond shut down beaches. They were about twenty (20) times higher than what the limit would be for safe water for swimming, and that was in my basement water. I want to echo what a couple people have said here already about climate change. As a scientist it is not about believing in climate change, it is about facts and evidence,but we won't get into politics here. The EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY 1 INNOVATION ' INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building227W.JeffersonBvld South Bend.Indiana 466011P574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 1TD574.235.5567',www.southbendin.gov 10