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Lebanon council approves up to $10,000 for independent review of Hunter Street lift-station options
Summary
After engineers said a mis-sited lift station could be corrected either by installing a new westward force main or removing and reinstalling the station (with risk and long lead times), council authorized the mayor to hire a second engineer for up to $10,000 to evaluate options and liability.
The Lebanon City Council authorized the mayor to contract an independent engineering review, capped at $10,000, to evaluate competing options for the Hunter Street lift station after contractors and the original designer presented two different repair paths.
City staff and consultants told the council that one option — running a new, larger sewer line to the west and connecting it to the existing station — may be less risky for the contractor and would deliver a new main that could improve reliability; the alternative is to remove the recently installed lift station and reinstall it at the originally intended elevation, a process that could damage the unit and take months to replace.
Councilors voiced concern about loss of pump storage and the station's ability to handle significant storm events; "three minutes of sewage in somebody's basement is three minutes of sewage," one council member warned, stressing the potential impact of brief storage differences. Another council member said the city could and should hire an independent engineer to assess whether the vendor's suggested westward alignment is the best long-term solution.
A motion to authorize the mayor to seek a second opinion and to cap the cost at $10,000 passed by roll call with a single dissenting vote. Council members said the city will either seek reimbursement from the designer's insurance if the independent review confirms an error, or otherwise use the second opinion to guide the next step.
What happens next: staff will solicit a qualified engineer for a peer review, return the consultant's report to council and, if appropriate, invoice the design firm or its insurer for the review cost.
