With sewers, it hurts to share

City may ask homeowners to replace their old ‘party lines’

By Lee van der Voo

The Portland Tribune, Sep 4, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (28 Reader comments)

The city’s Bureau of Development Services says Dawn Leonetti’s sewer line needs repair because of standing water. Since it’s a party-line sewer, if it needs repair then it needs replacement.

L.E. BASKOW / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Northeast Portlander Dawn Leonetti simply wants to sell her home. So when she got an offer after a few days on the remodeled, two-bedroom Tudor, she figured she had what she wanted.

But within weeks, a housing inspection taught Leonetti two things. She had a party-line sewer — a sewer line linked to a neighbor’s sewer rather than to a city main — and disconnecting it could cost her as much as $40,000.

And the city may soon require her to do just that.

Sticker shock? You bet.

Public remedy? Soon, but not soon enough.

Aching to address the need of widespread sewer malfunction and growing unease between neighbors over the problem, officials at Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services will call for wholesale replacement of party-line sewers citywide, at cost to hundreds of homeowners, in a request to the City Council in about six months.

Party-line sewers, if functioning, are currently allowed to operate in Portland but must be disconnected if in need of repair. The sewers were commonly built in the early 1900s, before direct access to sewer mains was required.

Frequent failures on the aging party lines are now prompting homeowners to link directly to sewer mains. Because state plumbing code has changed in recent years, homeowners who need repairs on party-line sewers can’t get permits for the work unless they disconnect them and link to a sewer main.

Absent a public program to disconnect Portland’s party-line sewers, homeowners like Leonetti are hunting for clear maps of residential sewers, a path to the nearest public sewer mains and neighbors willing to grant easements along the way. Meanwhile, Leonetti said, her home sale is becoming increasingly complicated.

“We were supposed to close on the 24th (of

August), and they made an offer to me five weeks before closing,” she said.

Officials at the city’s Bureau of Development Services say Leonetti’s party line must be disconnected because of standing water.

With patient buyers hanging on and support from much of her neighborhood, Leonetti counts herself lucky. She planned to rent after her home sale, so she doesn’t have a purchase of her own on hold.

Leonetti’s neighbors also have been discovered to have party-line sewers, as she investigates a solution. The neighbors have held meetings to discuss the problem, and Leonetti said most are eager to know what the future holds for them.

The majority of her neighbors have problem-free party lines but, in the future, also will have to disconnect them.

While Leonetti’s prospective buyers have agreed to pay up to $10,000 to replace the party line, the price of the job keeps going up. Unlike many roads in town, Northeast Eighth Avenue has no public sewer main under the road. To disconnect her party line, Leonetti must run a new sewer line south to Northeast Prescott Street, through a neighboring property.

Neighbors adjacent to Leonetti will not grant an easement for the new line without a $25,000 payment. One city estimate put the total price tag, including the cost of the easement, at $40,000. She is in talks with a second neighbor, hoping a more affordable easement will reduce her costs.

“It puts the homeowner in a really tricky situation, because what am I supposed to do? Go to war with my neighbors?” Leonetti said.

She said she spends two to three hours a day searching city records, talking to her real estate agent and meeting with neighbors.

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