Request By:
Honorable Thomas M. Bertram, II
City Attorney
317 Second Street
Vanceburg, Kentucky 41179
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of May 4 in which you seek an opinion concerning the following:
"A privately owned corporation is purchasing and building a sanitary sewage system, which consists of a 4 inch line and pump station that will connect with the City of Vanceburg sewer system. The system is for the purpose of serving a housing development that the corporation is constructing. When the system is completed it is proposed to be conveyed to the Vanceburg Electric, Light, Heat and Power System, at absolutely no cost to the City of Vanceburg.
"The issue is that the city sewer system in that area does not extend to the city limits; the city ran out of funds when the system was built. The development mentioned above lies about a mile from where the city sewer ends. Lying between the development and the end of the sewer line there are about twenty homes that have septic tanks or nothing. When the aforementioned new lines are laid, these homes will not be allowed to hook up to it, because it is a forced or pressure line, therefore absolutely preventing use by intervening homes.
"If the city accepts the new sewer system and agrees to perpetually maintain it, will the city be performing any illegal act by virtue of owning and operating a sewer section that only the residents of the development can use?"
To begin with, the facts related are not sufficiently clear to indicate whether the housing development is inside or outside the city. As a general rule, the city cannot extend its sewer system outside the city except when the public health and welfare of its citizens is involved. See OAG 67-437 [copy attached] . On the other hand, the city may allow nonresidents to tap on existing lines within the city where the city lines are sufficient to accommodate the residents of the city. See OAG 77-668 [copy attached] . Also, the fact that certain residents of the city are not extended sewer service is not material to the issue as the city is not required to furnish such service to all residents of the city. See 56 Am.Jur., Mun. Corps., § 569.
Thus, where the privately owned corporation is constructing the sanitary sewer system at no expense to the city which upon completion will be conveyed to the city's electric, light, heat and power system, following which the city will service the housing development, such acceptance and operation on the part of the city would, we believe, be valid even though the system is outside of the city boundaries and even though the residents of the city living along the service line cannot hook up to the system, provided such operation will not interfere or curtail in any way the sewer service of those residents already participating in the city system.