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Welcome!
Northwest Lakewood Sanitation District provides sewer services to approximately 4,000 homes and 500 commercial buildings spread over six square miles in Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, and unincorporated Jefferson County. The District maintains over 65 miles of sewer pipeline, 1,400 manholes, and processes some two million gallons of wastewater a day. On this web site you will find information about the District's policies, fees, board meetings, contact information for the district, and links to other relevant sites, as well as information for developers and what to do in a sewer emergency. If you have additional information to suggest, please contact us. We hope you find the site useful and informative.
Recent News
BACKGROUND INFORMATIONThe Northwest Lakewood Sanitation District's wastewater collection system ("System") has been in existence since the early 1950s. In accordance with practices prevalent at that time the System was constructed largely of clay pipe which has a useful life span of between 50 to 75 years. The cost to replace the entire System in today's dollars has been estimated by the District's engineer at 32 million dollars.Following various studies, the District's Board of Directors determined about five years ago that (1) the System was approaching the end of its useful life and would need to be gradually replaced or renovated, and (2) the District's reserves, which had been used to fund various necessary capital replacement projects, were inadequate to meet future capital replacement needs. As a result, the Board determined that the District would need to raise additional moneys in order to meet its anticipated future capital renovation funding requirements. Early in 2007 the District adopted a facilities renovation fee. In the spring of 2007 all property owners were sent a facilities renovation fee notice requesting payment of $100 per single family residential equivalent tap serving their property. At that point, the awareness of the District increased dramatically. Many citizens expressed confusion about the fee and its purpose. In response, the Board chose not to collect any facility renovation fees in 2007 or 2008 and set out to provide more and better information to the District's residents and property owners concerning the need for sewer system repairs and renovations. The Board convened a citizen's advisory committee and asked for its assistance in soliciting public comment and in analyzing options and recommending a solution. Newsletters, public meetings and the District web site were all used to convey information and solicit input. A survey was conducted to determine citizens' preferences with respect to how additional funds could be raised. A majority of those responding preferred a property mill levy and a ballot question was therefore placed before the voters in November of 2008. The ballot measure, however, was defeated by 6 percentage points. As a result, the Board found it necessary to institute a facilities renovation fee in the amount of $150 per single family equivalent tap in the spring of 2009. $259,857 of the collected revenue was spent on immediate replacement projects, while the rest was reserved for projects that were initiated and funded in 2010 as noted below.
PRESENT SITUATIONBecause of the significant need for capital funds, the facility renovation fee was imposed by the Board again in the spring of 2010. Essentially all the money collected from the 2010 renovation fee has been spent in 2010 on projects that involve traditional trench excavation as well as cured in place sewer pipelining.One of the last, and by far the largest project for 2010 was under Kipling Street between West 29th and 32nd Avenues. Its cost was in excess of $500,000. The project involved the replacement of existing overloaded pipes with new and larger PVC pipes. As most readers of this know, the project resulted in major traffic disruptions on Kipling Street, but it was successfully completed on schedule before the middle of November.
FUTURE PROJECTSIt is the Board's intention to continue the sewer system renovations until all pipelines have been renovated, or judged to be adequate in their present condition. Each year the Board will evaluate the nature and extent of the rehabilitation projects that need to be performed. For 2011 the Board anticipates accessing a renovation fee, again, in the amount of $150 per single family equivalent tap.The Board remains convinced that the most efficient way to collect funds needed for capital replacement projects is through the District's property tax mill levy. If there is strong citizen support, the Board will consider calling another mill levy election for the purpose of replacing the current facilities renovation fee with a property tax mill levy. At the present time the Board has made no decision regarding its funding sources, but would welcome input from its citizens. |
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