The Civil War was a long time ago. Yet, segments of the Terre Haute city sewer system date back to that era. Few aspects of 21st-century life in America can function efficiently with 19th-century technology.
This community has gotten its money’s worth out of its aged, overburdened sewer system. For too long, Terre Haute — like more than 100 other Hoosier communities — also has used a nearby river as an ultimate destination for its raw sewage.
Legally and ethically, these deficiencies now must be corrected. The repairs are not cheap.
The imperative need to fix the problems is the reason the City Council voted reluctantly, but unanimously, this month to increase sewer rates to local households by more than 50 percent during the next three years. The fees will rise 15 percent in July 2013, with two more 15-percent increases in the following two years. For the average Terre Haute household, the jump will be from $32 to $37 next year, then to $43 in 2014, and to $49 in 2015, according to the Indianapolis consulting firm of H.J. Umbaugh & Associates.
Higher bills affect homeowners, and the council members acknowledged the fiscal pain involved. Still, the reality is, Terre Haute must upgrade its sewer system and its 1960s-era wastewater treatment facility to reduce the amount of raw sewage that runs into the Wabash River. The 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act requires the improvements.
“We are mandated to do this,” Mayor Duke Bennett said at the council meeting. If Terre Haute failed to enact rate increases to pay for bringing the city’s waste disposal methods into Clean Water Act compliance, the community could face a federal takeover of the “long-term control plan” for the system. If so, rates would rise even higher, the mayor said.
The changes are two-fold, and not simple. One involves a $140-million upgrade of the wastewater treatment plant, basically doubling its capacity. The other — that long-term control plan — includes a new $120-million plan to divert, store and dispose of Terre Haute’s combined sewer overflow (or CSO). The end result should allow the city to reduce the volume of CSO — the combination of stormwater and raw sewage — into the Wabash from 690 million gallons a year to just 60 million.
The problem is rooted in the days before indoor plumbing, when Terre Haute built huge underground, brick tunnels to drain storm water from its streets into the river. Once homes acquired indoor plumbing, those tunnels became a “combined sewer system,” sending, yes, human waste along with rain water into the Wabash. A century later, the community invested in the southside wastewater treatment plant, and implemented another large tunnel linking the old combined sewer lines with the plant. That routed much of the sewage away from the river.
Not all of it, though. The system works fine when the sun shines, but any amount of rain or snow melting triggers significant overflow into the Wabash.
The upgrade will capture 96 percent of the CSO, according to the city engineer’s office.
Higher sewer rates will fund the wastewater treatment plant renovation. The extra sewer fees and property tax revenue will cover the CSO alterations.
Difficult as it is, the mayor, City Council and community have taken the proper path to modernize this infrastructure and better care for the Wabash.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: Price for modernizing sewers steep, but an essential step
Rates will jump steadily as major work progresses
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: MVC tourney an event worth having
It’s been a long time since the Missouri Valley Conference chose Indiana State University to host its post-season baseball tournament, but Terre Haute had never been more prepared for an event such as this.
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EDITORIAL: Cleaning up voter rolls
It’s not a lot of money in the big scheme of things, but the $2 million designated in the recent session of the General Assembly will begin the messy but necessary process of cleaning up Indiana’s voter registration rolls.
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
Almost every Hoosier who starts college intends to finish. Unfortunately, those who arrive on campus unprepared in key academic areas are far less likely to fulfill that aspiration.
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EDITORIAL: Insult to an independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: Dashing finish for the Sycamores
It’s always thrilling to see Indiana State University’s athletic teams do well in high-level competition, and two specific teams rose to impressive heights last weekend in the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships.
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EDITORIAL: Better monitoring needed to prevent local environmental messes
The nasty, hazardous messes lurking in the community raise a bottom-line, red-flag question. Could these environmental problems have been monitored and, thus, prevented?
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EDITORIAL: Memo to U.S.A.: You can ‘SPPRAK’ just as we do in Vigo County
Our kids, truly, are ‘Making a Difference’
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Some words in praise of boring government — Indiana’s
A conservative Republican governor has super majorities in both branches of the legislature. One might suspect such one-party government leads to major changes in public policy. This did not happen in 2013 in Indiana.
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EDITORIAL: Doc’s prescient prescription
Viewed through a 2013 prism, Doc Bowen’s response to the AIDS epidemic looks merely prudent, routine.
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EDITORIAL: Education remains worth the cost
Within the next few weeks, each of the local colleges will have conducted graduation ceremonies. A few days later, a different Class of 2013 will don caps and gowns for commencement — the seniors at five Vigo County high schools. It is still a smart, worthy aspiration for those high school grads to replicate the achievement of those college students by earning a higher-education degree.
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EDITORIAL: Good news for downtown
For decades, it seems, downtown Terre Haute has been in the throes of change
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EDITORIAL: Overall, state budget step in the right direction
For average Hoosiers uninterested in political point-scoring, the budget crafted by the Indiana Legislature inspires only muted, if any, fanfare.
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EDITORIAL: The lessons of organ donation
The range of emotion surrounding life-saving transplantation of a vital organ is extreme. It is the ultimate “good news-bad news” scenario.
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READERS’ FORUM: April 26, 2013
• Pence’s tax cuts benefit wealthiest
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
This does not qualify as a surprise in any way. But the Wabash Valley’s response to widespread flooding of recent days has been nothing short of impressive, even inspirational.
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EDITORIAL: Still waiting for the jobs reward
The forces in control of Indiana government for most of the past decade need to show some results to Hoosiers in one primary category.
Good-paying jobs. -
MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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EDITORIAL: Doing the dirty work to clean up tossed trash
A first-of-its-kind, coast-to-coast project to remove litter from U.S. roadsides brought the Pick Up America crew through the Wabash Valley two years ago.
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EDITORIAL: Keep school security a local issue
The decision to provide armed security inside a schoolhouse should be made locally.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Indiana’s parks need your help.
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EDITORIAL: The return of terror
Emotions today remain strong and raw in wake of Monday’s terror bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
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EDITORIAL: A solution to distracted driving … stop it … now
You’ve got to stop. You know you do it. It’s a miracle you haven’t caused a tragedy already.
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EDITORIAL: ‘Women of Influence’: 2013 selectees have given much to their communities
For the second year, United Way of the Wabash Valley has teamed up with local sponsors to select and honor a group of women who have made outstanding contributions to their communities, professions and families.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: A new honor for our veterans
A commendation goes out today to state Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Terre Haute Democrat who led the charge this week in the Indiana House of Representatives to pay tribute to the nation’s Purple Heart recipients.
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EDITORIAL: Shifting view on marriage
One could argue, as many have, that Sen. Joe Donnelly did the right thing last week when he dropped his support of government-sanctioned opposition to same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a radical move, considering most Democrats have now made the switch.
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MAX JONES: The American Newspaper: Changing? Yes. Dying? No way!
It happened again this past January when all those “looking at the year ahead” stories started popping up on Internet “news” websites and broadcast “news” programs. Under a provocative headline reading something like “Five industries/businesses doomed to tank in the coming year,” there it was, a prediction based on an unsubstantiated “expert” analysis that the newspaper industry will continue in 2013 to suffer its slide into oblivion.
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EDITORIAL: A chance to change our bad cultural habits
The sight of diligent, eager young people dragging trash out of the Wabash River wetlands is both inspiring and sad.
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EDITORIAL: Maintaining high standards
Standards
It’s the raging buzzword in education circles these days. Everyone insists that higher standards must be met. Anything less is, doggone it, unacceptable. -
Noteworthy in the news
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EDITORIAL: Crack down on dumpers
There is a reason it’s called “illegal” dumping. It’s against the law. And there is a very good reason illegal dumping is against the law.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: MVC tourney an event worth having
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