By Michael S. Hoey
Correspondent
The Delavan Lake Sanitary District is once again at odds with Walworth County.
Not long ago, the DLSD was responding to complaints from a Delavan Lake resident and the county about its weed harvesting activities. More recently a dispute involves the need to replace a generator at a lift station.
DLSD Administrator Jim DeLuca said the generator at Lift Station No. 4 in the Ravenswood neighborhood failed in late June during a storm.
DeLuca said the county has yet to issue the necessary permit for the work to be completed (…) and it was the intent of the DLSD to proceed with the project by the end of July despite not yet having the approval of the county.
The DLSD sent a letter dated July 1 from Luke Martell of Municipal Law and Litigation Group which said the county has continued to “stonewall” the district’s attempts to repair and maintain its sewer system and its duty to protect the health and sanitation of the public and the waters of the state.
In the letter, Martell cited a project at Viewcrest that in his opinion the county “strung along” for two years without a response to the district’s permit application. The permit, Martell said, was finally denied without a full disclosure of the rationale behind the decision.
“Now, the District has continued to jump through superfluous hoops setup for the Ravenswood project and the County still has failed to issue the permit requested,” Martell wrote…
Martell said the county appears to be ignoring state statutory authority – including its own zoning standards – and cited a long list of county and state ordinances and codes that support his argument. Based on that list, Martell said the district is exempt from the zoning regulations that may otherwise be applicable to private property owners.
Shannon Haydin, Deputy Director/Walworth County Conservationist and one of the four people at the county level the letter was addressed, said if the district proceeds with the repair without a permit it could result in a fine and if the project is something that could get permitted the county could require the permit after the fact. If the project involves elements that cannot be permitted and the district refuses to remove unpermitted illegal structures, citations could be issued.
“Citations are a compliance tool of last resort,” she said.
Without knowing all of the details about the project, Haydin did not say if the project could be permitted after the fact. But she did say the county does not agree with the district’s position that it’s exempt from county rules.
Haydin said the county sent a letter dated June 30 to the DLSD asking for a discussion between the district and county be placed on the agenda of the next DLSD meeting.
She also provided a partial list of complaints the county has received about the DLSD operations since July of 2018 (…) and said she was aware of more complaints that were not officially logged.
“The District is not exempt from our rules,” Haydin said. “This is the position we have always maintained; it is what we argued in our (previous) court proceedings.”
Haydin said the county was hoping to work things out with the DLSD amicably but it appears the district want to litigate the matter.
There is much more to this story, which is covered in detail in the July 16 issue of the Delavan Enterprise.
If this work needs to be done, please, get it done. Whether the hold up is on the part of the DLSD or the county, work together and do your jobs. If our lake becomes contaminated when a completed project could have helped to prevent it, who will be to be blame? Again, please do your jobs, stop the infighting, and get the job done. Thank you.
Mr. Deluca. After reading the report about leaving weeds in a harvester next to someone’s home, it seems like poor management is a major issue with DLSD. Example from the news report from July 10th : Your suggestion that the county doesn’t want to harvest the weeds after 117 years is nonsense. It’s clear that is not what anyone is saying. it’s time to get rid of some of the elected officials who make poor hiring decisions. Something needs to get done and Mr Deluca doesn’t seem like the right guy.