Sewage Issues

Here's what happens in a city with competent leadership:

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
2006-04-21

HOUSE BEAUTIFUL NOW HOUSE BEFOULED
GREASE CLOG REMOVAL FILLS HOME WITH SEWAGE

Mac and Meg McCormick had a home to envy in southeast Charlotte, a home built largely by Mac's hands over 28 years, a home lovely enough for its kitchen to be featured last month in an Observer story about 
home improvements.

It is lovely no more. About 3,000 gallons of sewage took care of that. On the evening of April 6, Meg McCormick says, three city workers were trying to clear a sewer line in front of their house by 
blasting a grease clog out with a high-pressure hose.

The plan backfired, literally. It forced sewage through the home's pipes, up through its toilets, throughout the first floor, down into the crawl space under the house.

At first, the McCormicks said, the city offered them its standard deal for sewer backup damage to a home - up to $15,000 and a preventive line valve, in exchange for a promise not to hold the city liable for damage.

But a few days after the McCormicks' sewage eruption, the city changed its mind.

Now, taxpayers will pay for the gutting, repairs and cleanup of the house, which may cost more than its $101,300 value. The city also 
will pay for the McCormicks to stay in a SouthPark hotel for as long as the work lasts.

Or so city officials have told them. The McCormicks have nothing in writing, and the city's risk manager has declined to discuss most of the specifics of the case because it's active.

All of which puts the McCormicks in an odd spot. They have a ruined home and a promise, and not much else.

"We feel we have no choice but to put our trust and faith in the hands of the city," Meg McCormick said this week, sitting on her front porch and watching movers haul fouled furniture out the front door. "And I'll be honest, that's a little scary."
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Like an oil well

The noise, she said, sounded like an elephant belching.

"Just braaaaaap," Meg McCormick said. "And then it was just" She searched for words. "It wasn't oozing, it wasn't rising, it was shooting."

She was standing at the kitchen counter that night, having just been assured, she said, that the clog removal wouldn't do anything to her house. Now, from the counter, she could see into one of her 
bathrooms, and black gook was shooting skyward two feet from the bottom of the toilet bowl.

"It was," she said, "like we'd struck a small oil well."

The stuff was spewing out of other openings, too. It lasted 55 minutes.

Over the next few days, the McCormicks spoke to city risk managers, Mecklenburg County environmental engineers and their homeowners' insurance carrier. They were distressed to discover that their 
insurance didn't cover sewage backups - then again, they'd never considered the possibility.

Four inches of sludge covered the floor. Sewage had leaked into the central air and heat system, and solid waste had collected in the heat ducts.

Finally, on April 11, Meg McCormick said, a city claims manager gave her the word: The city would take care of it.
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How the city handles it

The city and county, whose five plants treat more than 84 million gallons of wastewater per day, can't track sewage backups into homes because they don't oversee private lines, said Vic Simpson, spokesman for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities.

That's why, he said, the department doesn't know exactly how much sewage ended up in the McCormicks' home. The 3,000-gallon estimate is the McCormicks'.

But such backups aren't uncommon, especially in a city like Charlotte, whose growth threatens to outstrip its infrastructure.  Grease clogs are usually the culprits, and Utilities has initiated a public-information campaign to warn people against dumping grease down their sink drains.

Utilities responds to as many as a half-dozen calls about backups per day, Simpson said, although many are minor. Only a couple per month result in claims to the city, he said.

The McCormicks' case is more than minor. Scott Denham, the risk manager for the city and county, declined to discuss most details, but did say, "There's no question of the severity of this event."

In most cases, the city handles damage from a sewage backup by dipping into its risk management fund and following a policy the City Council adopted in the early 1990s, Denham said.

The policy provides for the city to pay out up to $15,000 per claim and install a backup-prevention valve in the residential line in exchange for the homeowner's promise not to sue. The $15,000 maximum, Denham said, is a compromise between the average amount of damage costs from a backup and what the city can afford.
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Staying at the hotel

The McCormicks' situation was different. City officials decided to resolve the case through its general liability insurance, under which the city can pay up to $2 million, its per-claim liability exposure, Denham said.

He declined to discuss why the city chose the general liability route for the McCormicks. To do so, he said, could set a basis on which plaintiffs could challenge the city in court on its decisions after backups.

City officials don't even know how much the final bill will be, Denham said - although Meg McCormick said she's received estimates of $75,000 to $150,000.

The city will get the bill from the hotel the McCormicks and their 16-year-old daughter moved into Thursday, and from the company the city hired to restore the McCormick home.

The McCormicks aren't angry. As far as they're concerned, after a few days of indecision, the city's doing right by them.

But they wonder how many others will have to endure the same.

"I never want another human being to go through what we've gone through, but I know they will," Mac McCormick said. "I tell you, the city's just growing so fast, they can't keep up."
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