Village eyes storm sewer upgrades

The Belgium Village Board on Monday will discuss going ahead with engineering work on a multi-million dollar storm sewer upgrade project.

The project would include inflow and infiltration (I and I) improvements on Elevator Lane, North, Commerce and Elm streets, and part of Park Street, along with three retention ponds.

“We’re getting a lot of I and I into the sanitary sewer system when it rains,” Public Works Director Dan Birenbaum said at a joint meeting of the Public Works and Public Utilities committees June 25.

Video footage of the pipes, he said, show cracks that allow water to enter during rainstorms.

That, Wastewater Supt. Paul Bley said, can double or triple the amount of water in the pipes and overwhelm the treatment plant.

Those occurrences mostly happen during heavy rains on already-saturated soil, which Bley said have been happening more often in the past few years.

Installing new storm sewer pipes on South Avenue and Main and Maple streets has helped to prevent overloading the wastewater treatment plant, Birenbaum said.

The cost of new pipe and retention ponds in the latest proposed project would range from $5 million to $6 million, depending on the length of the loan, according to a document from Treasurer Vickie Boehnlein.

If the project is done in 2021, a five-year loan would cost a total of $4.956 million. A 10-year loan would cost $5.23 million and a 20-year loan would cost $6.08 million.

Regardless of the loan’s length, costs would be split between the village’s general, water and sewer funds. The general fund would pay 60% and the water and sewer would pay 20% each.

Boehnlein said the project could be funded without raising taxes.

“Assuming the tax base stays pretty flat or goes up,” Boehnlein said, the general fund should be able to handle the yearly payments.

Helping the cause is the closure of a tax incremental finance district in 2024. Its $282,000 of annual tax revenue could be put into capital projects.

“What this does is it allows us to pay that five-year loan and it allows us to save what we need for all of the other capital projects that are due prior to 2026,” Boehnlein said.

In the water fund, $83,000 has been set aside for capital projects this year. More money would be needed for the storm sewer work, but the fund has a $600,000 fund balance — essentially a savings account for emergencies — that could be used.

If the village increases water rates by 3%, the water fund could pay its portion of the loan along with other capital projects without deferring any purchases.

The sewer fund has $71,000 for capital projects this year and in 2021. That would have to increase, but a loan payment of $200,000 for wastewater treatment plant work ends in 2021. That money could be used to pay for the storm sewer project.

The only equipment purchase the village would have to delay from 2026 to 2027 is a street sweeper, Boehnlein said.

Birenbaum said starting the project in 2021 would be difficult since engineering work hasn’t begun yet.

Members from both committees, which together constitutes a quorum of the Village Board, unanimously recommended the board agree to start engineering work on the project.

In a related issue, the Department of Natural Resources has required the village to reduce the phosphorus in its wastewater. Belgium has been granted a variance to essentially delay action but eventually plans on a significant treatment plant upgrade.

Bley said a total maximum daily loads committee affiliated with the DNR is in the exploratory stages of examining ways to reduce phosphorus. Upgrading the storm sewers — and thus reducing runoff into the treatment system — could be one possible solution, but Bley said it could be years before definitive information is released.

The priority, he said, is fixing the village’s storm sewers. Bley said he still expects a treatment plant upgrade would be required.