Village to Offer Sewer Service

(from the Daily Herald)

By Madhu Krishnamurthy
mkrishnamurthy@dailyherald.com
Posted Saturday, June 23, 2007
Wynstone homeowners can flush all they want once Lake Zurich extends sewer service to relieve the North Barrington subdivision’s overburdened septic system.
The deal also benefits Lake Zurich, which hopes to collect $804,000 in up-front connection fees and roughly $270,000 in annual revenue from Wynstone.
The sewer line and connections would be paid for by Wynstone, but no construction date has been set.
The Lake Zurich village board authorized staff to draft the agreement to be approved at a later date.
Lake Zurich has been in talks with Wynstone’s homeowners association for several years on the issue. The subdivision and golf course off Route 12 has an on-site sewage treatment plant. Treated water runs through a spray irrigation system and is applied to the golf course instead of discharged into a lake, stream or other water body.
Over the years, capacity has not kept up with the waste. That’s problematic during the rainy season when the ground already is soggy, Lake Zurich public works director Dave Heyden said.
“They can’t discharge onto the golf course, which then basically exceeds their capacity and they have to end up hauling it off site,” Heyden said.
Lake Zurich has never been keen on granting requests for sewer service from individual neighborhoods outside its boundaries, though it has deals with the villages of Hawthorn Woods and Kildeer to provide service to select properties.
Wynstone’s request to divert its excess sewage to Lake Zurich’s system is the first such appeal to be granted.
That’s because the golf course community lies within Lake Zurich’s Facility Planning Area, even though 40 percent of the subdivision is in North Barrington. Lake Zurich had factored the subdivision into future planning for its sewer system.
Wynstone would be allowed to discharge 100,000 gallons per day into Lake Zurich’s system. The village has plenty of capacity to absorb that, and possibly future discharges from Mount St. Joseph, a residential home for developmentally disabled women which also uses a septic system, Heyden said.
However, some village officials said they are concerned the Wynstone deal sets a precedent and would force Lake Zurich to provide service to areas outside its boundaries yet within its planning area.
“I don’t think this action places us at any greater risk than we already have,” Village President John Tolomei said.