The News Tribune's May 7 editorial on Duluth's inflow-and-infiltration program, headlined, "Expect the unexpected, even from the city," completely missed the mark and revealed a lack of understanding on how the program works.
As I understand it, the city runs a camera through main sewer lines and looks at the lateral lines coming from individual homes. The city categorizes each line as contributing either a low, medium or high amount of water to the system. This is done subjectively by the eyeball, not by any measuring instrument. If your line is deemed to contribute a high amount of water, you're forced to pay to replace your line, including any section under the city street.
This program is just not fair. Consider the following example. There may be 15 homes on a city block. Of these homes, maybe 12 contribute some amount of water to the sewer system. Of those 12, maybe only three are deemed high. Those three homeowners may together contribute less than 50 percent of the problem, but they'll pay for 100 percent of the solution. Consider also that the results may very well be different on a different day under different conditions.
The editorial's attempt to analogize replacing a sewer line pursuant to this program to paying for other home repairs or medical bills was just silly. Those are individual problems, requiring individual solutions. Duluth's inflow-and-infiltration issue is a citywide problem, demanding a citywide solution. The city needs to implement a cost-sharing arrangement with individual homeowners. I recognize homeowners would get new sewer lines and ought to bear some of the cost. But perhaps the homeowner could pay the first $3,000 and the city pay anything above that.
Low-interest loans aren't the solution. They don't address the fundamental unfairness of a select few homeowners bearing the entire cost to remedy a citywide problem.
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Fritz Anderson
Duluth
