Homeowner claims against the city climb from $521 in 1996 to
$168,205 this year
City officials vow they will be able to contain their
skyrocketing sewer liability costs by checking sewer lines with a
special video camera and removing debris.
Homeowner claims against the city climb from $521 in 1996 to $168,205 this year
City officials vow they will be able to contain their skyrocketing sewer liability costs by checking sewer lines with a special video camera and removing debris.
The cost of clogged lines backing raw sewage into homes through sinks drains, showers and toilets in homes has swelled from $521.09 in 1996 to $168,205.28 so far this year
While the city council routinely denies claims by homeowners seeking reimbursement for cleanup, it doesn’t always mean the city isn’t paying.
“We deny any claim and that is referred to our insurance carrier,” said City Manager George Lewis. “They will settle the claim one way or another.”
Once a claim is made, insurance investigators go out to the scene to assess whether it was the city or homeowner at fault, he said. The Monterey Bay Area Insurance Fund covers the city. Paid claims that amount to less than $10,000 come from the city’s pocket; but anything over that amount comes from the fund.
The increased costs to the city prompted Councilman Tony Bruscia to ask City staff for an analysis of how much money is being paid out.
“How many times are we going to pay people for cleaning their houses for our mess?” Bruscia asked. “I think, unfortunately, it’s getting progressively worse.”
But Bruscia cautioned that the backups were not a result of increased demand on the city sewage system. Utilities Manager Jim Perrine said trees are the biggest culprits of clogged lines.
“We found that we have a large growth of tree roots in the sewer mains,” Perrine said. “Debris collects behind those roots and the mains get clogged.”
For the last six months, city staff members have been inserting a special video camera into the sewer lines to check for buildups. Now they will use another special machine to trim the roots and flush out the mains with high-pressure hoses. In some cases, grease balls are contributing to the problem when residents dump it down drains.
However, Perrine concedes that some of the lines are so old they will have to be replaced completely, a process complicated because they run underneath residential properties. Many of them are original pipes, Lewis said.
“In the older part of town the sewers are in the alleys,” Lewis said, “Who knows what they are made of?”
In spite of skyrocketing payouts, Lewis said most claims are in the $500 to $1,000 range. More than $160,000 in this year’s payout resulted from only two incidents, one them on Sunset Drive where a sewer line on a slope clogged and flooded a couple of houses with raw sewage. Lewis did not immediately have the exact number of people that have claims against the city this year.
