Local businessman Tommy Cain has asked the City of Batesville to provide water and sewer service for two houses he wants to build on the end of Gowdy St., but aldermen are balking after learning at least one of the lots is too low to attach to existing sewer lines.

Water Dept. superintendent Mike Ross told the board the only options for the builder is allowing the houses to have treatment plants, or install a sewer lift station in the backyard of the last lot.

A lift station will cost $14,800, plus the monthly electricity and maintenance Ross told the board. He said contractor Robert Beard shot grade on the lots several times, and said the lot was too low for the existing sewer system.

Ross said city workers agree, although one of the lots might be just high enough to create some fall back to the manhole. The nearly $15,000 would include pumps for both lots. One pump with installation would cost about $8,000

Cities are legally required to offer water and sewer services to all residents within its limits unless other considerations agreeable to both parties are in place, or if providing said services would fall outside the parameters of the  “economically feasible” language of the law.

It’s this option to deem the project not “economically feasible” that would presumably allow the city to refuse to install sewer infastructure just for those two lots.

Ross said the board could always allow Cain to install treatment plants at the location, although that would take a special exception finding because that type system, nor septic tanks, are allowed in that area.

The city council, understandably, wants to avoid making an allowance for a treatment plant because others would want that option in the future. Alderman Stan Harrison said he wasn’t ready to vote for the expenditure without more thought on the proposal.

“I might look at (treatment plant) before we have to spend fourteen thousand dollars on one house,” Harrison.

Board counsel at the meeting, Colmon Mitchell agreed, “I think it is something you need to talk about first,” he advised the mayor and aldermen.

Ross was instructed to determine if the existing sewer is deep enough to properly service the first lot, and to discuss shared payment for a lift station with Cain.

“I can talk to him, but I don’t know if it will do any good,” Ross said.

“Tell  him we are going to take it under advisement, please,” Harrison said.

In other related news from the meeting, Ross asked the board to approve extending water service to property owned by Sammy Woods on Cotton Plant Rd. He said the house is not on city water, but is in the certified area to service.

Aldermen approved the $1,210.54 cost of the request.

Ross also gave the board an update on small repairs his department has been making around the city, including manhole cleanouts, raising some manhole levels, and replacing cleanout caps that have been cut off by mowers or otherwise damaged.

This work is ongoing between scheduled water department projects and leak repairs as the city continues to search for ways to limit the amount of rainwater that is pouring into the sewer system during heavy rains and over burdening sewer lines and the wastewater treatment plant.

Ross said workers are also conducting smoke tests to find clogged and collapsed lines that are making the problem worse.