New Sewer system improves quality of life for many families

December 17, 2008

Editorial

A NEW sewer system that will serve four rural Adams County communities has the power to improve the quality of life for hundreds of local families.

The project was launched nearly seven years ago and cost $5.3 million. Sanitary sewer service will be available in Coatsburg, Columbus, Fowler and Paloma, making those places more attractive to homeowners, businesses and new development.

Jeff Conte, an engineer with Klingner & amp; Associates of Quincy, expects as many as 200 customers will connect to the sewer lines. The service will eliminate the need for septic tanks which tend to fail and require costly repairs. Sewer treatment will improve ground water quality as well by replacing broken or inefficient septic systems.

The sewer system is a modern descendant of programs such as rural electrification and telephone services, which transformed the national economy during the 1900s.

President Franklin Roosevelt established the Rural Electrification Administration in 1935 as a means of creating jobs and ultimately serving the needs of rural areas where service was not considered economically feasible through traditional profit-making utilities. Low-cost loans were made to hundreds of member-owned cooperatives and within a few years 1.5 million U.S. farmers had access to electric service. Work continued for decades.

In 1949 the program was expanded to loan money to telephone cooperatives.

The REA has been one of the most successful economic development programs in the nation's history. Electric and phone systems have improved rural living standards and have greatly slowed, but not stopped, the out-migration from rural to urban centers.

Adams County's new rural wastewater program holds similar promise. It was first proposed in Paloma in 2002, but residents of the three neighboring communities attended early meetings to seek inclusion. Many residents of those communities found that septic tank problems were costly and the small size of city lots made it difficult, and often impossible, to replace a septic system on the homeowner's property. Consequently, if no sewer system can be built, the home is not habitable.

Grants from state agencies covered about 75 percent of the project's cost. Homeowners within the district who lack the financial means to connect to the sewer system have the opportunity to seek assistance in making connections.

Sewers, electric systems and phone networks may not excite the imagination to the extent that a new employer does. Yet without the former, the latter will locate elsewhere. And without the homes and quality of life, the work force will locate elsewhere.