Bob and Pam Ardis were blindsided. They were among 275 homeowners in Duluth who received a letter from the city this spring giving them 1½ months to repair the sanitary sewer line that runs from their house out to the city's pipe beneath the street. The couple called a contractor. The estimate: $9,116, they reported in a letter back to City Hall.
"Does this approach really make any sense at all to you?" they asked in the letter.
Their alarm was understandable. But would their jaws have dropped any further had the estimate been to repair a failing basement wall? Or had the dollar figure been the balance of a medical bill not covered by insurance?
Living life -- and owning a home, especially one of Duluth's many older ones -- comes with risks and unexpected expenses. Foundations give way. Emergency repairs have to be made. A car is totaled. A new one has to be bought.
And yes, the city can hit you with a bill to fix a broken pipe that's contributing to raw sewage spilling into Lake Superior.
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Overflows have been a pollution problem for decades. The city is finally doing something about them. The approach is three-pronged: sump pumps in basements, massive overflow tanks to catch and hold sewage before it reaches the lake and the requirement that homeowners like Bob and Pam Ardis repair their so-called "lateral lines."
"That's our plan of action," the city's Sandy Mass told the News Tribune editorial page yesterday. It's a plan that has been agreed to by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Without the plan, the city faced stiff fines from those agencies and the very real and very disastrous prospect of a moratorium on building permits.
With the plan, some homeowners are getting stuck with unexpected bills for $7,500, on average, according to a study paid for by the city last year. If they don't pay and don't complete their repairs, they face monthly fines of $250.
Help is out there. As the News Tribune explained yesterday ("How will she come up with $6,000?"), no-interest loans are available to low-income homeowners through the city's Community Development Block Grant program. And Neighborhood Housing Services offers 10-year loans at an interest rate of 7.25 percent.
In addition, at least two banks in Duluth offer loan programs for precisely this sort of work to people in homes with little equity and to homeowners with low or moderate incomes. Hundreds in Morgan Park, after being referred by the city, took advantage of these programs several years ago when sewer and water pipes were replaced throughout their neighborhood.
Also, Duluth Mayor Don Ness said his administration is crafting a plan to help homeowners even more. He hopes to present it to the City Council by mid-June.
His plan can't come soon enough for Bob and Pam Ardis, or for others who received a letter from the city this spring. Many of them would agree the work is necessary. Few could argue the cost is painful. But is it any more painful than any of life's other unexpected bumps?
