Time may be running out for Edgewood residents to disconnect downspouts that allow storm water to flow into the borough's sanitary sewer system. "If they don't respond, we will send them a letter that we will file with the district magistrate," interim borough Manager Shirley Kuchta said. Kuchta said the borough is working to verify its list of known violators before sending letters notifying some residents that they must disconnect the downspouts or face a fine. The amount of the fine was not immediately available. Disconnecting a downspout that is connected to a community's sanitary sewer system generally costs in the $1,000-to-$2,000 range, said Flo Mascilli of East End Plumbing, based in Sharpsburg. Mascilli said as with any home-improvement project, a homeowner would be wise to follow the time-honored practice of getting bids from three contractors before agreeing on a price. "There's a lot of technicalities to deal with," Mascilli said, noting that disconnections will vary from house to house. Churchill Manager Lou Bruwelheide said all the downspouts in his borough have been disconnected with the exception of one, which he said is an "engineering nightmare." Bruwelheide said the cost of disconnecting a downspout in his borough runs as much as $4,000 to $5,000, depending on the length of pipe needed to direct rainwater to the street or to a separate storm water system. The figures reflect costs from 1995 -98, when the majority of them were done in Churchill. Kuchta said after Edgewood residents receive letters, they will have 30 days to notify the borough either that they have disconnected their downspouts or plan to correct the problem. If residents fail to respond or to take action, the borough could file a complaint with Forest Hills District Justice Susan Evashavik. "We have to do this. We need to have some response," Kuchta said of the letters. Kuchta said if fines were to be assessed against residents, they would be imposed by Evashavik. The jurist could not be reached for comment Thursday. Edgewood — as well as neighboring Swissvale, Wilkinsburg and the eastern portion of Pittsburgh — has until Nov. 30, 2004, to inspect and to repair its sanitary sewers to conform with a consent decree signed with the state Department of Environmental Protection. The communities have been ordered to reduce the pollution they send into Nine-MileRun — the stream that flows through Frick Park and into the Monongahela River. For Edgewood and the other communities the task is twofold. The first part of the job is getting residents to disconnect outdated storm water systems in which homes had their downspouts connected to the borough's sanitary sewer lines. In times of heavy rain, because of historically high number of downspout connections, local sanitary systems can become overloaded with rainwater; the condition causes raw, untreated sewage to be flushed into the local rivers from overloaded sewage-treatment plants. To date, according to a report that Kuchta gave to borough council, 1,304 homes within the borough have been tested. She said that, of those homes, 314 tested positive for a storm water-to-sanitary-sewer-line connection, and 142 such violations have been corrected. The borough now has about 172 known violators. The list is being double-checked by borough personnel, Kuchta said. Pat Schaefer, the borough council member who heads the eastern basin group of a county-wide effort to stop storm water-sewage overflows, said the work must be done or else the borough and its residents could face the bureaucratic wrath of federal officials. "We are under a federal mandate. This is not something we can pick or choose about," she said. She said Edgewood is the only one of the four municipalities entirely in the watershed of the Frick Park stream. "We're completely in Nine-Mile Run," Schaefer said. The second part of the borough's consent decree with the state DEP states that the borough must televise — or photographically examine — its sewer lines to identify the parts of those lines that must be replaced. Schaefer said all of the sewer lines in Edgewood have been televised. She said the sewer line on Race Street — the road that runs past the borough building — is first in line to be repaired.

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