Residents Told To Pay For Own Sewer Repairs

"Until now – and in a more aggressive way during the past three years – the city has been forcing homeowners who have party-line sewers, or sewers that are linked to a neighbor's line rather than to a sewer main, to abandon the lines when they need repair."

"They are telling people like Conroy to link their homes directly to a sewer main. But an estimated 4,000 people citywide have no adjacent sewer main to link to."

"Citizens in Portland have been spending thousands of dollars on solutions, in some cases financing on their own what are in essence public sewer projects. They face sums that cause sometimes impossible burdens. Meanwhile, a city plan to fix its sewer system's gaps is years away."