For more than 24 years, city of Maumee employees routinely reported to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency that the town was not discharging sewage into the Maumee River.
Those affirmations were manifestly untrue.
In fact, between 1996 and 2020, the city of Maumee dumped millions of gallons of sewage-contaminated water into the city’s namesake river.
What’s more, during portions of that time, the city’s sewer system was not overseen by an appropriately certified sewer collection operator.
The Ohio EPA fined the city $29,936 and issued short and long-term orders compelling the city to remedy the situation.
But the damage done by those city employees is now hitting Maumee hard.
The city council has approved a deeply unpopular measure that requires those who attempt to sell their Maumee properties to pay for sewer repairs while their neighbors who stay put aren’t required to pay anything for as long as they own the property.
The city’s new mayor is faced with the unenviable task of cleaning up after his predecessors.
And infuriated citizens are meeting to vent their anger, planting “Trapped In Maumee” yard signs and demanding that the sewer inspection and remediation ordinance be scrapped.
At the heart of the disconnect between Maumee property owners and their city government lies a question as old as politics: Is a common peril best conceived of us a single community issue or as 5,941 individual household and business issues?
The EPA acts, and the city responds
On July 21, 2021, the Ohio EPA ordered the city to take all feasible steps to stop sanitary sewer overflows and basement wastewater backups to ensure that further discharges do not occur.
In response to the disclosure of the illegal dumping and the state EPA’s orders, the city of Maumee under former Mayor Richard Carr passed two ordinances on Nov. 7, 2022, that laid the groundwork for the city’s more recent actions.
Ordinance 927.36 required Maumee building owners to disconnect all existing roof drains, sump pumps, and other clean water connections from the sanitary sewers at their own expense. The purpose of this bill was to prevent storm water from flooding the sanitary sewers beyond their capacity — the condition that prompted the earlier discharges of sanitary sewer water into the Maumee.
The purpose of a second ordinance passed the same day was less clear. Ordinance 927.35 significantly expanded Maumee property owners’ financial responsibilities for maintaining the sewer system.
Prior to that time, building owners were responsible for sewer pipes running from their homes or businesses up to the curb. The new rule, however, made property owners responsible for the pipes all the way to the sewer main. Sewer mains are typically buried under the streets. They may run near the curb by the building’s property line. They may be buried in the middle of the street or near the curb across the street.
Excavation of streets costs considerably more than excavation of a yard. And so, though it may not have been understood by many at the time the ordinance was enacted, the city had just transferred a significant cost burden from the municipality to individual property owners.
In the early morning hours of June 17, 2024, Maumee City Council unanimously passed the ordinance that is now roiling local residents. The law requires that all conveyances of real property be preceded by a sewer inspection by city officials. The owners of properties that pass inspection will receive a certificate of compliance from the city and their conveyance can proceed unimpeded.
The owners of properties that fail the inspection, however, must either repair their sewer systems prior to closing or escrow funds with the title agency. In those cases, property owners are required to obtain two repair estimates and to escrow 110 percent of the higher one.
Property owners have 90 days to remediate the sewer issues identified by the city report. Failure to do so may result in fines to the property owner of between $250 and $1,000 per day for each day after the 90 day remediation period has passed.
The investigations begin
In addition to an investigation conducted by the Ohio EPA, a special commission was established by Lucas County and is chaired by attorney Fritz Byers.
Information about the status of these investigations has been hard to come by, which is not unusual in matters involving potential criminal offenses. But the possible existence of one or more criminal investigations has made the work of other investigative authorities difficult.
“The work of the Lucas County commission has been effectively stymied. ...,” Mr. Byers said. “Virtually every individual with information falling within the scope of the commission’s charter was implicated in the investigation, at least as a material witness. Their constitutional right to refuse to talk to us has made our work impossible.”
Maumee residents react
Though no scientific poll has been conducted, it is safe to say that the sewer inspection and remediation ordinance is extremely unpopular among Maumee residents.
At a citizens meeting held Monday night at the Maumee Elks Club, speaker after speaker denounced the ordinance as the wrong way to solve a community problem. No one spoke in support of the ordinance — and many castigated the city council for passing the legislation as an “emergency” bill at a 6:30 a.m. council meeting.
Even title companies that are tasked with enforcing the ordinance got no advance notice of the new law.
”We got no notice from the city on this,” said Jim Lindsay, the president and owner of Louisville Title. “We had to communicate what needs to be done to our agents and customers, so we printed up a flyer. Our problem is that we had a lot of contracts that were signed before June 17, so we had to call everyone and say there is something new you need to do before we can close.
“The city has got to understand that this was not done in the best manner,” he added.
Many homeowners who have scrambled to get estimates for the repair of their sewer lines have been stunned by the costs.
Pat McNamara and Patti Savage-McNamara, who organized the citizens meeting, were presented with an estimate in excess of $40,000 to fix the sewer issues at their 900-square-foot home. They eventually obtained an estimate for $37,000.
“We can’t imagine each Maumee homeowner going through what we are going through,” Mrs. Savage-McNamara said.
Longtime Maumee resident Dana Johnson, who owns several rental properties, was shocked by the ordinance.
“The more I learn, the more devastating this appears,” he said. “This ordinance will cost me between $250,000 and $300,000. I will have to sell two of the properties I own just to pay the city. Our city has grossly overstepped on the rights of every citizen.”
At a meeting held in city council chambers on Tuesday night, Maumee mayor Jim MacDonald acknowledged the popular anger over the inspection and remediation ordinance, but argued that the city had no choice.
”We have to do exactly what the state tells us to do,” he said. “If we don’t, the consequences will be severe. We have take all feasible steps to stop sanitary sewer overflows.
“I have to be brutally honest. Our choices are limited. We must comply with what’s being asked of us and try to fix what we have.”
Later in the meeting, Mr. MacDonald noted that the city is under an order to report to the state EPA in just a few days what steps the city has taken to address its sewer issues.
“We are trying to buy time,” he said. “We are trying to appease the EPA by doing something.”
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