EVERETT — The city of Everett is extending its now passed deadline for some residents to install backwater valves to protect their property from sewer backups in the event of a major storm.
The new deadline is Sept. 1.
The city enacted a program last fall that required up to 1,800 particularly flood-prone property owners in north Everett to install the one-way valves on their sewer outflow pipes, and offered $2,500 rebates to owners to do so.
Only about 840 have done so, and a flurry of last-minute applications for the rebate program prompted the extension, city officials said.
The program was designed to prevent the massive flooding that occurred during a series of storms in 2013 and to protect the city from paying out claims. The storms caused the city’s 100-year-old combined sewer and stormwater system to back up into dozens of basements.
So far the city has paid out $3.2 million in damage claims from the 2013 storms, with a few large claims from commercial properties still outstanding.
The policy enacted last year also puts a cap on the claims, and limits those circumstances in which the city will pay out. And that’s where some residents are becoming alarmed.
As the June 1 deadline to install a valve approached, Everett’s public works department sent out reminder notices to emphasize that the city would no longer pay claims for backups on properties where the residents had installed the valves.
That caught Shelley Weyer, the chairman of the Northwest Neighborhood Association, by surprise.
She said previous communications from the city seemed to say the opposite. An Oct. 6 letter specifically read, “After June 1, 2015, the city will not pay sewer backup claims for ‘designated connections’ without backwater prevention devices.”
What was left unsaid: the city wouldn’t pay claims even if residents did install the valves.
Weyer told the City Council last Wednesday that she had been working to make sure her neighbors were complying with the city program, and only realized after a more recent letter from the city specified that no more claims would be settled if the devices fail for any reason.
“It’s embarrassing to say, ‘I’m sorry but if you get flooded again, you’re out of luck,’ ” she said.
After debate among the City Council members last August, the city changed the wording of the ordinance to specify that homeowners would have to maintain the valves on their property, while the city would only maintain those installed in a public right-of-way.
The rule was written to be a “bright-line” rule, without ambiguity as to liability, assistant city attorney Tim Benedict told the council.
The ordinance, Benedict said, “in most cases doesn’t even require to have the city determine whether the valve was properly maintained or why it failed.”
Right now, the city is not considering amending the ordinance, other than to extend the deadline, spokeswoman Marla Carter said.
Despite the shift in liability from the city to homeowners, there are advantages for those owners to take up the city’s offer of the rebate, Carter said, the first of which is that the work will get done before the next storm season begins.
The city eventually will install backwater valves in public rights-of-way for those properties without one, but that might not happen for several years.
The city’s rebate program also includes a list of preapproved contractors and ensures valves will be installed in the right locations on the side sewer line. They will also be able to detect and fix other problems, such as a downspout emptying directly into the sewer system.
The city’s right-of-way might not be the best location to install a backwater device to protect a given property, Carter said, and the city workers doing so won’t examine the side sewers.
Everett is also upgrading and separating its sewer and stormwater lines in many problem areas. The fixes will largely eliminate the threat of flooding from sewer overflows.
The “Sewer M” project, which covers much of the Northwest neighborhood, will start getting installed in October and take about six months to complete.
Projects for other parts of the city are still in the planning stages, which means several storm seasons will come and go before longer-term fixes to the city’s aging sewers are in place.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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