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DALLAS TWP. — A Dallas Area Municipal Authority proposal that requires a fee to inspect public sewer connections before a home sale is finalized met with opposition from residents this week.
The cost, which was estimated to be up to $500, is part of a Corrective Action Plan that DAMA developed to meet requirements to lift a sewer hook-up moratorium.
The moratorium, issued by the state, covers all municipalities served by DAMA in the Back Mountain.
“This is an attempt to configure the system to stop the invasion of stormwater,” said DAMA attorney Benjamin Jones III of the proposed changes.
The infiltration of ground and stormwater into DAMA’s system resulted in numerous overflows where untreated sewage was released into Toby Creek, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.
The authority had unpermitted discharges of untreated or inadequately treated sewage on March 5 and 20, 2008; Feb. 25 and 28, 2011; March 6 to March 15, 2011; April 28 to May 3, 2011; July 1, 2015; and March 27 to April 13, 2017, DEP reported.
As a result, in June, DEP issued a moratorium preventing DAMA from releasing any new public sewer connections until a plan was developed to prevent sewage overflows from its main pumping station into Toby Creek.
The proposal would allow the sewer authority to inspect a home’s sewer lateral pipe and look for illegal sewer connections, Jones said.
“The best time to do those inspections would be at the time of sale,” he explained.
The lateral sewer line is the privately owned pipe that connects a residence to the public sewer system.
Illegal connections often involve sump pumps and rain gutters attached to the sewer system.
The inspection fee would be charged to the property seller, said Tom Keiper, executive director of DAMA.
“We would have a third party inspector do the inspection,” Keiper said.
One resident questioned the proposal and asked if the $500 fee would still be applied if there were no violations found.
Keiper and Jones said it would.
Local real estate agent Brenda Pugh said the fee seems high for township residents.
“That is a significant change to the sellers’ closing costs,” Pugh said. “We have properties selling back here for under $100,000.”
Jones said the debate over the fee should be discussed at the DAMA meeting, not at the township’s meeting.
The sewer authority board meets at 7 p.m. the second Thursday of the month, Keiper said.
“It is something new. It is a novel idea and therefore objectionable,” said Jones.
The next Dallas Township meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Sept. 5 in the municipal building.