Agenda - 11-04-2010 - 7a - Laserfiche WebLink

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3 Section VIII (G) and VIII (H) -User Responsibility: This amendment is meant to address a gap of responsibility that exists in the existing Resolution. The existing amendment clearly states that the County is responsible for maintaining any of the sewer collection system within County easements or in public rights-of-way, but the customer is responsible for the portion of the system which runs across their private property. When there is a problem with the pipe that connects the customer's house/business to the main sewer line, the responsibility to fix this rests with the customer. County staff believes there needs to be a way for the County to maintain the integrity of the system in a timely manner rather than wait for the customer to address an issue. Most customers resolve problems quickly, especially if it impairs the function of their bathrooms. However, for some issues, like a broken cleanout pipe in their yard, the plumbing will continue to work fine for a while and the issue is not urgent enough for them to fix it. Broken cleanouts can allow thousands of gallons of stormwater into the sewer line during a rainstorm, so they represent a major source of inflow into the sewer collection system. Because the County pays to treat every gallon of water that flows to the Town of Hillsborough, a broken cleanout can be very costly to the system. This amendment would allow the County to be proactive in correcting these types of problems, even though the financial responsibility will still rest with the customer. Section XII.(G.) -Filling Swimming Pools: Due to the increasing cost of sewer service, several customers have requested that water they use to fill their swimming pools in the summer be excluded from their sewer bill. A customer's sewer bill is based on the reading on their water meter, so if the water used to fill the swimming pool was not excluded, their sewer bill would include a significant amount of water that did not enter the sewer system. Staff believes a specific policy in place to address this would eliminate the need fora "judgment call" each time the request is made. This policy would be forwarded to Orange-Alamance Water System, the County's collection and billing agent, for display in the System office and would be something to which the System could refer when customers have questions about filling their pools. Section XII.(H.) -Leak Adjustment Policy: From time to time, a customer will develop a leak in their plumbing that results in a tremendous amount of water flowing past their meter unused. This results in an extremely large water and sewer bill. The current resolution has no leak forgiveness policy of any kind. Currently, if a customer wants an adjustment to their bill due to a leak, they have to request an adjustment directly from the BOCC. The proposed Leak Forgiveness Policy, modeled after the existing Orange-Alamance Water System policy, would be a standing policy that would allow leak adjustment to be handled at the staff level using a defined set of rules approved by the BOCC. The policy would be added to the Efland Sewer Resolution as "Attachment B" and is included in Attachment 1of this abstract. It should be noted that in an effort to ensure that Efland sewer customers were aware of the proposed amendments, staff briefly addressed them during a meeting with representatives of Justice United several weeks ago. Staff also provided draft copies of this abstract and the attachments to Justice United representatives via email in mid- October and offered to meet to discuss the proposed amendments. The Justice United representatives did not follow-up to request a meeting. FINANCIAL IMPACT: Implementation of the Leak Forgiveness Policy and the Swimming Pool Policy will result in a slight loss of revenue to the Efland Sewer Fund. Implementation of the