The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Commonwealth of Kentucky are working with the City of Lexington, Kentucky to extend the compliance deadline of an existing consent decree to resolve issues with the city’s sanitary sewer system.
The consent decree has been amended and will be lodged with the court and opened for public comment. The amended decree will look to extend the compliance deadline for sewer system improvements from December 2026 to December 2030. The four-year extension will allow the City of Lexington to complete remaining projects.
According to an EPA press release, since the original consent decree has been signed in January 2011, the City has completed 75 remedial projects focused on improvements to the sewer system. The extension will allow the City time to adapt to increasing supply chain delays and workforce disruptions, and will also offer increased time for completion of additional projects that weren’t contemplated at the time of the original decree.
The additional projects include a 50% increase in flow capacity for the East Hickman Force Main, a 2 million gpd upgrade to the East Hickman pump station and a nearly 50% increase in the East Hickman wet weather storage facility.
The original consent decree was the result of a lawsuit that the EPA and the Commonwealth of Kentucky filed against the City of Lexington for violations of the Clean Water Act related to sanitary sewer overflows.
The resulting decree of a 2008 offense required the study, design and implementation of numerous construction projects to repaid and upgrade sewer system infrastructure to prevent the discharge of wastewater into surface water streams during periods of heavy rainfall.
The City of Lexington has already addressed 85 recurring sanitary overflows. The results have reduced pollutants in water that can cause water quality problems and human health impacts due to exposure to raw sewage.
The proposed schedule of the decree anticipates having 90% of the listed recurring sanitary sewer overflows addressed by December 2026.
