Public Services Director Ken Unger addressed a group of concerned Lake Cortez Shoreliners at the Cortez Pavilion on Friday, June 2, 2023. Lake Cortez Shoreliner, Lorri Street, arranged this meeting. and the main topics of discussion were overflow from sewer manholes, Inflow and Infiltration of stormwater into the sewer system, and whether the lake is contaminated.

Ken Unger explains his background and history as HSVPOA Public Services Director

At the June 2 meeting with Lake Cortez Shoreliners, Director Unger said, “I bought a home in the Village in 2012. I retired here in 2015, and as part of the regime change when certain individuals left, I offered my services to try to resolve issues across the POA that were within this realm [Public Services] of responsibility, which covers everything from common property, roads, water, sewer – pretty much everything except recreation and golf is under the umbrella of Public Services.” Unger said he started as Public Services Director in May of 2022, a little over one year ago.

Unger said he has a civil engineering background and was a Director at Horizon over construction across the country. He hopes to employ his skills and support to do what is required to get the community infrastructure to where it should be versus where we have been.

Unger said he initially discovered the sewage issues on November 16, 2022, but some shoreliners may know more about the history.

Backstory and Lake Cortez Shoreliner Concerns

Property owner Tim Trieschmann said that he and his wife, Dr. Lydia Lane, reside at the lowest point on Lake Cortez and have experienced sewer overflows for more than 13 years. Trieschmann shared that the “main sewer line runs through his backyard right next to the lakefront and overflows, on average, two to three times per year.” He said he sent dozens of emails, including photos after every rain event, to the HSVPOA Board of Directors.

On January 30, 2023, in an email to the Board and General Manager Kelly Hale, Trieschmann again pled for action concerning the sewage overflow issue; Trieschmann said that although the POA sends cleanup crews after the overflow events, “the smell and discolorization of our yard make it unusable for months.”

“The POA responded after every storm, cleaning up the raw sewage in my backyard. Everything that goes down the toilet sits in my backyard after every single rain. We’ve exhausted to the point that we can’t sell our property because of this issue. That is why I sent letters to the Board and this entire group [Lake Cortez Shoreliners],” penned a frustrated Trieschmann.

In response to a recent email, “Public Services has come out and raised the manhole by six inches.” Trieschmann said,

In a May 26, 2023 email to Ken Unger, cc’d to General Manager Kelly Hale and Lakes Superintendent Todd Noles, Lake Cortez Shoreliner and June 2 meeting organizer, Lorri Street said:

“There is conversation circulating amongst Cortez Lake Shoreliners pertaining to sewage that has been and continues to be, leaking into Cortez Lake. Shoreliners who have talked to the crew of Heller Company (the company contracted by HSV to clean out the sewer lines) have learned that the pump station off Santistiban has not been working properly for some time, causing sewage to seep into the lake.  I too talked to the same Heller crew, hoping to get a better understanding of the situation, and was informed of the same.”

Heller has been working since December to identify sewer line problems around Lake Cortez and clean the sewer lines. Lorri said that the May 11 rain caused excessive Lake Cortez water infiltration into the Santisiban pump station, “as well as individual property owners’ sewer lines.”

Problem/Solution

At the meeting with the Lake Cortez Shoreliners, Unger stated, “We have a major trunkline that serves the entire western part of the Village that runs along Lake Desoto and Lake Cortez that hits the Cortez Pump Station, which I think you call ‘Santistiban,’ which then in turn pumps to the Mill Creek Sewage Plant.”

“One of my efforts here is to deal with the aging infrastructure. When I took this position, we knew that the Mill Creek Plant was about 50 years old. It was built in the 70s. It was a package plant, which means it is kind of a prefab system meant for smaller entities, not a large community,” continued Unger.

Unger said there are some plans to do upgrades at Mill Creek Plant, and through heavy rainfalls, that plant overflows.
“We report it to the DEQ [Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality] every time it overflows. We are required to report the overflows,” stated Unger.

“We have been working on plans to help remediate that…When this issue came up, which was unbeknownst to me, we dove in immediately to start looking at it. What I found out was that there were various efforts throughout the years to try to address this. The most recent one [effort] was an $800,000 project to elevate the rims of the manholes on the west side of the Village – Not specifically on Lake Cortez, per say… “

Unger said while the elevation of the manholes gave some improvement, it did not solve the problem.

Unger said that when he got here, the pumps on Cortez Lift Station were already being replaced.

The problem we have on the west side of the Village, outside of the outdated and inadequate Mill Creek Sewage Plant, is that we have something called I and I occurring in the system. I and I is Infiltration and inflow. Infiltration of stormwater enters the lines below ground and inflow penetrates the lines from the ground surface.

Unger stated that the efforts to raise the elevation of the manholes probably helped reduce some of the inflow issues – but probably not to a great degree. Unless the manhole was located in a low-lying area, it is not likely water was entering the manhole.

When Unger became aware of the issues in November 2022, he hired Heller Company, Inc. to take video inside the sewer lines and find possible leaks. Heller also cleaned lines. (Click here to read the December 3, 2022, article about Heller’s efforts in the Village.)

“In the cases where the lines and manholes are damaged, what is happening there is infiltration is getting into the lines.” While stormwater is entering the system, it is not leaking out through the lines unless the line is exposed. One line was found where possible leaks occurred outside. This line was replaced with a cast iron pipe. “For the most part, these are situations where infiltration enters the line,” Unger explained.

Unger said, “This is not new. I have been reporting this to the Board. Frankly, the Board didn’t know about this either – at least the ones I talked to did not know this was happening [until Unger talked to them].”

Some repairs made on the sewer lines

The assessment increase, passed on November 15, 2021, has been going towards infrastructure projects such as tackling the sewage problems. “My budget is almost $4 M to upgrade water and sewer in the Village. (Go here to read the article about the assessment increase.)

  • Unger said they found a dock pipe had pierced a 24″ sewer line before the Cortez Lift Station. This was repaired immediately. This piercing did not cause leakage because the pipe was the size of the hole, and it was not floating in the lake but buried in the ground. It wasn’t cracked open,” said Unger.
  • A cable provider had bored through the top of the sewer line, leaving a huge six-foot-long gash. Rocks surrounded this gash but still allowed water to enter the system. This was repaired.
  • Multiple other issues, such as three cracks in the sewer seams, which were repaired for $60,000, came to light. Two of these were on DeSoto and one on Cortez.
  • Seven leaking manholes were also repaired.
  • Additionally, some manholes were elevated further in problem areas such as Trieschmann’s property.

Unger said it is difficult to design something if they don’t have quantitative values on what’s happening in the system. “Our efforts over the last six months have been to isolate where the overflows occur so we can get measurements. One of the other things we did to allow that to happen was we cleaned all the lines on DeSoto and Cortez, all the way from Calella lift station over to Cortez Lift Station,” stated Unger.

The Director said the lines contained much material that should not have been there. “It is not a system capacity issue under normal conditions. It has to do with Inflow and Infiltration; that is causing the problem.” Additionally, Unger shared that the lack of line maintenance was part of the problem. The maintenance was taken care of in late 2022 and early 2023.

When the lines were cleared, more flow started getting to Mill Creek Sewer Plant, resulting in fewer manhole overflows but more overflows at the plant, which was expected. “If we are going to overflow anywhere, we want to overflow at the plant so that we can build plans around that and stop it,” stated Unger.

At the May 11 rain event, we had overflows at the location where we are measuring, but it didn’t overflow at Trieschmann’s property. Trieschmann said, “This was the first time [that there were no overflows] during a rain event.”

Unger said the overflow occurred only at the spot they were measuring.

“When they replaced the pumps at Cortez Lift Station, all they did was replace them in kind. We have an opportunity there because the line from the Cortez Lift Station to the Mill Creek Plant can handle much more flow. We are in the process right now of having the pumps re-engineered to see if we can put pumps that are twice the size in there which will allow us to leave the level of flow in the system lower because it pumps what is coming at the same rate that it is coming in. That will further help to decrease the chance of an overflow in the system. There may be one or two other areas where we raise a manhole on the lower end, but for the most part, the rest of our efforts here will be focused on the equipment at the lift station and stopping the I and I [Inflow and Infiltration].

We will most likely invest money in the Mill Creek Plant to build a larger flow equalization basin [storage for the sewage]. We are also considering rerouting all the flow from Mill Creek Plant to Cedar Creek Plant. This will require an upgrade to Cedar Creek Sewage Plant. If this occurs, Mill Creek will only be a storage facility until it can be processed at Cedar Creek. Currently, this appears to be the most economical way to proceed.

The cost to repair I and I [Inflow and Infiltration] often outweighs the cost to store the excess flow to be processed later.

Unger said the I and I budget last year was $150,000, spent on the lines at DeSoto and Cortez. The Cortez pumps were upgraded for $122,000. We will invest around $250,000 to upsize the pumps. This year, the budget is $400,000, invested almost entirely in the Cortez area. There are also overflows on the east side, but they are not as severe as what has happened on the west side.

The recent lake samples for Lake Cortez varied greatly, but all were at an acceptable level. Unger stated that the levels of E. coli were higher around the boat ramp, and geese may cause this, but the levels were still acceptable.

Unger said, “We don’t have any equipment malfunctions at the moment, and we don’t have anything actively leaking into the lake. We have water getting into the system that is causing problems when we have rain events…If Tim [Trieschmann] didn’t experience overflows on May 11, that is a good sign. Believe me, that was almost a cataclysmic event.”

There are sewage lines that run under the coves, but we know they are not leaking because Keller used a camera to inspect the lines and didn’t find a leak. The camera is rotated around each joint to look for leaks.

Lake Cortez property owner Patty MacDonald shared copies of a “Brief History of Lake Cortez.” Click here to read the article.

Click here to read Unger’s proposed plan for sewer upgrades.

By Cheryl Dowden; Photography and Videography by Joe Dowden

There are audio difficulties in the video due to ceiling fan and outside noise levels. In addition, some folks did not go to the microphone when speaking.

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR PUBLIC SERVICES DIRECTOR

Ken Unger
Director Public Services
Hot Springs Village
501-226-9609
Kunger@hsvpoa.org