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The Administrative Consent Order and Professional Engineering Services Agreement with <br /> AECOM will address sanitary sewer priorities 2, 3, and 4. <br /> BACKGROUND: <br /> Administrative Consent Order <br /> In 2012, the United States Environmental Protection Agency(USEPA) served Decatur with an <br /> Administrative Consent Order(ACO),requiring the City to eliminate overflows and reduce <br /> basement backups. Staff retained outside counsel with expertise and direct experience in <br /> USEPA administration of the Clean Water Act. With the assistance of outside counsel and <br /> AECOM, extensive negotiations between the City and the USEPA have resulted in USEPA's <br /> issuance of an ACO that is greatly limited in scope compared to the initial Order. This is due to <br /> the City's pre-existing commitment to improving its sanitary sewer systems, and its good faith <br /> efforts to negotiate a reasonable ACO with USEPA. <br /> The City's commitment to improving its sanitary sewer systems commenced in earnest in 2009, <br /> when Staff began preparing a Sanitary Sewer Master Plan. The plan recommended an <br /> aggressive course of rehabilitation of the City's critical sewers. To fund these improvements,the <br /> City Council approved a sewer user fee increase beginning in 2011, with a final increase <br /> occurring in May, 2015. Even while negotiating the ACO,the City has been making significant <br /> strides to rehabilitate its sewer system, including the Lake Shore Drive sewer rehabilitation <br /> project,the Union Street sewer rehabilitation project, 7th Ward sewer rehabilitation and design <br /> work currently underway for rehabilitation of the McKinley sewer rehabilitation projects. The <br /> City Council's 2014 approval of a storm water utility will assist the City's ability to address the <br /> requirements of the USEPA ACO. <br /> The Administrative Consent Order's major requirements included: <br /> 1. A Development of a Capacity Management, Operations, and Maintenance (CMOM) <br /> program. The CMOM program provides a comprehensive review of the City's sewer <br /> collection system asset, including system management, maintenance, and capital <br /> improvement funding. <br /> 2. Preparation of a Sewer Collection System Alternatives Analysis (SCSAA) for areas <br /> identified as experiencing Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs)and sewer back-ups during <br /> storm events. The analysis will focus on efforts to keep storm water from entering into <br /> the separate sanitary sewer system and better manage stormwater entering the combined <br /> sewer system. <br /> The SCSAA and the CMOM submitted in April of 2016 identified a gap in funding to complete <br /> all work within the Order. To close the gap in funding the City Council adopted a 5 year, $0.57 <br /> rate increase starting in May 1, 2017 <br /> Page 15 <br />