Sewer: STEP (City of Lacey)

by | Jan 4, 2020 | Uncategorized


STEP stands for Septic Tank Effluent Pump. While the property owner is responsible for the sewer line that runs from your house to the STEP system, the City of Lacey maintains the system itself. Because the City owns the STEP system and it is considered part of the City’s utility system, there is no requirement to have the system pumped if you sell your home.

The STEP tank and pump are buried in your yard and are controlled by an electrical panel on the side of your house. The wastewater from your home flows into the septic tank where solids settle out and form sludge on the bottom of the tank. The liquids flow through a screen and get pumped into the City’s sewer line for transport to the LOTT treatment plant.

The City of Lacey maintains your STEP system and comes to pump & inspect it every 8 years. When crews arrive to perform preventative maintenance on your STEP system, they will first knock on your door to let you know they will be working. Check out this brochure for more information.

Caring for you STEP system:

  • Maintain at least a 3-foot clearance around the green tank lid(s) in your yard and a clear path to the control panel on the side of your home. Without clearance, crews maybe unable to perform maintenance.
  • Never drive or park anything on top of your STEP system.
  • Ensure that water, toilet paper, and human waste are the only things that go down the toilet and drains.
  • Do not add septic aid products to your system or put chemicals down the drain.
  • Excessive use of your garbage disposal can clog your system. Throw away or compost excess food, coffee grounds, eggshells, fats, oils, grease, etc.
  • Locate the STEP system’s breaker in the home’s electrical panel. Make sure this breaker is on at all times. If the breaker is turned off or trips, there will be no power to run the pump and you could experience sewer backup or overflow.
  • If your tank lid becomes damaged, secure the area and report it to t he City of Lacey Maintenance Service Center at (360) 491-5644 as soon as possible.
  • Call before you dig. Its the law! Do not dig around your tank unless underground utilities have been located. Homeowners can request utility locates by calling 1-800-424-5555 (or *811 on your cell phone) or online at http://www.callbeforeyoudig.org/washington/index.asp.

 

If your STEP system alarm goes off:

  • You will hear a loud alarm, similar to a car alarm, coming from the control panel located on the side of your home.
  • Press the red button to silence the alarm. The red light will remain on while the alarm is active.
  • Restrict water use by not running your washing machine or dishwasher until City crews can determine the cause of the alarm. As long as sewer is not backing up in the home, brief showers and toilet flushing is okay.
  • Immediately report the alarm to the City of Lacey Maintenance Service Center at (360) 491-5644 during business hours or at (360) 704-2740 during nights/weekends.

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A Different Perspective on the 2016 Annexation Committee Report

by | Nov 25, 2019 | Uncategorized

Gig Harbor benefits by annexing Canterwood by over one million dollars annually, as you can see in the submittal to the city by Mike Wilson in August of 2019. The City also complies with the 1990 Growth Management Act which states cities have an affirmative responsibility to annex neighborhoods that are built out and contiguous, located inside the Urban Growth Line.

Canterwood is a text book example of hitting every requirement to be annexed.

The residents of Canterwood benefit by annexing to Gig Harbor. Around half the homes on the city sewer benefit from a $40 monthly reduction (surcharge and extra maintenance charge) and more importantly, get out of an unmanageable responsibility for maintenance and management for the total system.  (Much more supporting detail is in the AnnexCanterwood.org site)  Since there are no negatives from annexing, this benefit by itself is strong justification to annex.

Everyone in Canterwood moves from being in a politically isolated community to being an important part of one of Washington’s outstanding small towns. We will have a voice in the place that we all connect with and, most importantly, professional, disinterested help with our infrastructure. We will be making a solid contribution to Gig Harbor’s financial health, as our net property tax contribution exceeds by four times the entire income from the City’s utility tax.

We move from having emergency 911 response to patrols seven days a week.

So, the obvious question is: why didn’t we complete the process after we started in 2008?   What I saw was the HOA Board basically just dropped off the petition for annexation, signed by 10% of the residents, and waited for the city to evaluate and decide. The Council  was not interested in annexation for political reasons.

The Council ordered city staff to work up an analysis of the costs and benefits from annexation. The report was way off the mark and concluded the opposite of what our study shows, which is that there is a substantial financial benefit for Gig Harbor.

We just sat there listening.

Some of the reasons the HOA Board was sandbagging our 2008 petition are covered once again in the 2016 study:

  • Worry about how many costly changes would be required to our infrastructure, i.e.  additional fire hydrants.
  • Everyone having to hook up to the city sewer.
  • Treatment problems with STEP.
  • Out of date collection systems.
  • Fear of being forced to abandon our private gates..
  • Golf carts ticketed on our streets.

Not one item is true.  Not one item was true in 2008.

The only way for Canterwood to achieve all the significant benefits of annexation is to have a clear plan about the entire process. If it is not managed by a group sincerely motivated to annex, we will not be annexed.  The city is bound by regulations, guidelines, and history to   treat Canterwood fairly. There has never been an annexation in Gig Harbor’s history where any of these type of feared requirements were even brought up. No one in the past would have agreed to be annexed if they were going to be forced to switch to sewer at their expense.

The City is actually very limited in what they can require: two items, zoning conformity and assumption of bonded indebtedness.

The understanding that Canterwood would someday join Gig Harbor has been repeatedly reinforced by Council actions for over 25 years:

  • They extended city sewer which is the most important statement of intent and, to underscore their direction, they imposed a 50% surcharge on the sewer bill.
  • They asked Pierce County, as a condition of platting the numerous divisions, to require that every plat carry the provision that the owner will not contest annexation if initiated by Gig Harbor.
  • Canterwood was included in the first UGA boundary which went out to 144th but was reduced without public comment and knocked out Division 12. (Fortunately for Canterwood Development it was allowed back in).
  • The City has agreed 11 separate times to extend sewer to Canterwood.
  • Recognizing that we would be in the city, the county started requiring curbs, gutters and sidewalks in the newer divisions.
  • The City has collected over $1,200,000 from the surcharge incentive to annex since our effort to annex in ’08 was repulsed.  Our STEP Boards and the HOA Board have never said a word about this.

We have been struggling to get our message about the singular importance of annexation out for five months. We created the site AnnexCanterwood.org and recently a FaceBook site called Canterwood Issues. Every point made in this letter is backed up in the Annex Canterwood site and you can study the material, if interested.

Alan Weiss, who died not long ago, represented a community leader to emulate. Alan was always willing to dive into issues and create solutions. We first got to know him when he took over the STEP for Div. 4 through 11. At the time, there were serious problems with many systems because outside water was infiltrating in quantity, affecting the whole system from each home hookup all the way down to the treatment plant. Instead, he worked personally, and fairly endlessly, with all the members, to fix the problems. (Contrary to the commitment to  the City , most of the home hook-ups were put in without proper inspections, so they leaked a lot).

Alan was a doer and was the clearest proponent of the need to annex with whom we have ever been gifted. His work and example are greatly missed.

We are making progress. Real estate brokers are starting to see the need to disclose to prospective buyers the highly special features of being hooked to the public sewer (STEP) while at the same time having the only nonpublic system in Washington. The STEP system breaks Washington law by being privately maintained and managed by the residents (see AnnexCanterwood.org for details). Disclosure protects sellers and brokers from being sued after the residents understand their position, but it also begins the marking of STEP owners as having an unquantifiable negative inherent in the arrangement.  The reality should be that STEP would be the preferred solution for environmentally aware newcomers.  If you are not on STEP please take the time to read the directions for operations put out by the two associations to better understand the scope of the responsibility.

To a large measure, the biggest obstacle to annexation is indifference. Individually, it is not a big deal whether or not we are in the City.  It becomes a big deal when you have a storm sewer problem affecting your house, or someone shuts a valve blocking the discharge and you get alarms and expensive repair bills on your STEP system.  Canterwood deserves a more responsive government capable of dealing with our infrastructure.  By far the only cost effective change for us to make is to join with Gig Harbor.

We plan to continue building awareness until the summer of 2020.  By then we need to form a larger group to manage the petition drive and a steering committee to manage negotiations with the City. 

Along with the Annex Canterwood site and Canterwood Issues on Facebook, I will do my best to answer questions, or at least refer you to sources with more background. My email is johnmorison1086@gmail.com. I am running for a position of the Canterwood HOA Board.

I always confess to being a retired developer, instrumental in Canterwood’s success, and a land owner between Canterwood and 144th.