Alameda to Fall Under EBMUD Ordinance Starting January

Information submitted by East Bay Municipal Utility District:

Starting on January 1, 2015, EBMUD is taking over the city of Alameda’s private sewer lateral program.

Private sewer laterals are the sewer pipes that connect a home to the main sewer pipe in the street. The East Bay’s sewage collection system is quite old. During storms, rainwater seeps into cracked, leaky sewer pipes, eventually overwhelming our wastewater system that wasn’t designed for stormwater. Sometimes, like during the storms earlier this month, too much stormwater in the wastewater system results in partially treated sewage being released into San Francisco Bay.

This past July, the city of Alameda along with 8 other cities, the Stege Sanitary District and EBMUD signed an EPA consent decree to make improvements ($1 billion combined) over the next 22 years to their respective municipal sewage collection systems and the regional wastewater treatment system. The private sewer lateral program is one of many efforts under that consent decree.

Starting on January 1, 2015, EBMUD is taking over the city of Alameda’s and the city of Albany’s private sewer lateral program. The program will be identical to the one currently in place in the city, but now Alameda property owners will work through EBMUD to inspect, repair and certify their private sewer laterals when they meet one of three conditions.

Alameda property owners must comply with EBMUD’s regional private sewer lateral ordinance when they meet one of three triggers: 1) they buy or sell a property, 2) build or remodel in excess of $100,000, or 3) change the size of their water meter. In order to obtain a compliance certificate, property owners who meet one of those three conditions must demonstrate to an EBMUD inspector that all the private sewer laterals on their property are without leaks.

Here is a link to the website that describes the program. As you’ll see it has not been updated yet to include Alameda as one of the cities under EBMUD’s ordinance, but that will change on January 1.

For questions, customers can call 866-403-2683, email psl@ebmud.com or visit the program page to schedule an inspection.