BROWNSTOWN — Three people representing the owners of 84 homes located in the Lake & Forest Club east of Brownstown met with town council members Monday night to discuss the possibility of connecting the club’s sanitary sewer system to the town’s system.

“We feel like it’s important to have this conversation,” Luke Nolting said as he and two homeowners with the club, Mark Pardieck and John Wiethoff, laid out a proposal during the council’s meeting.

Nolting said the club and its members are trying to do a couple of things.

“One, we are just trying to enhance our relationship with you guys, our neighbors and everyone around us,” he said.

Nolting said residents of the Lake & Forest Club also want to begin exploratory discussions about the possibility of connecting the club’s sanitary sewer system with the council.

He said the club history dates to 1945 when 135 acres was purchased around the 80-acre lake.

“Many business owners here (in town) and many students to schools here, live at the Lake & Forest,” Nolting said.

“One thing to touch on here when it comes to us being more active and helpful to the community, I liked to thank you as well as Chief McElfresh (Brownstown fire chief Travis McElfresh), who has been working with members of the Lake to set up standpipes for reservoir for the fire department to use in need of extra water.

“Anything you guys, we want to help out as well. I don’t know if that has always been the case but moving forward, we want to make sure that that is something you guys are aware of.”

Nolting said the sanitary sewer proposal stems from discussions as part of planning for capital needs by club members in the future.

“Over the past 10 years, the Lake & Forest has spent more than $300,000 replacing laterals, replacing and lining of the main sewer line and lining the manholes,” he said.

Nolting said homeowners at the Lake & Forest Club are aware of the multi-million-dollar project to renovate and upgrade the town’s sanitary sewer system, two lift stations and wastewater treatment plant in 2023.

Under the proposal, the Lake & Forest Club is asking the town to agree to allow for an engineering study to be funded by the Lake & Forest to advance a formal proposal to the town to consider the potential connection. The club does not want to spend the money for the study if the council will not consider the plan.

If approved, the club would be willing to continue to maintain its sanitary sewer system, Nolting said, and the plan would be to connect with a single metered line to the town’s system.

The Lake & Forest Club has its own wastewater treatment plant that was built in 2000, Pardieck said.

“It’s getting to the age were we have to start planning and every year IDEM (the Indiana Department of Environmental Management) asks me, “Hey have you ever thought about considering hooking to Brownstown,”” he said.

Pardieck said at least he can tell IDEM that they had approached the council, and they either accepted the proposal or rejected it.

“So that’s where we are at,” he said.

Council President Gregg Goshorn asked about the club’s timeline.

Nolting said he thinks they would like to move forward with the engineering phase ASAP.

“Because as you guys know, everything takes time,” he said. “Obviously we want to do it with the support of you.”

Pardieck said the question is if the town even has the capacity for 84 new homes. He also asked about the town’s billing rate.

“I don’t want to go off the water meter, but the sewer discharge,” Pardieck said because a lot of homeowners at the Lake & Forest Club don’t live there year-round.

“It’s seasonal,” he said.

Councilman Tim Robinson said at this town basis sewer bills of water usage.

Goshorn asked if there was a specific place where the club’s system could be connected to the town’s system.

Pardieck said back in the late 1990s a study was conducted that left three possible solutions.

“Running it down Huff Creek next to the fairgrounds and then there’s a couple of different directions we could take there,” he said.

He said he recently learned the lift station at the fairgrounds is in need of repairs, so the club might be able to connect there and help with repairs for that lift station — owned by the county.

“There’s a lot of options out there for everybody to consider,” Pardieck said.

Robinson said the council will need to talk to Scott Hunsucker, who manages the sanitary sewer system, for information about capacity.

Town attorney Zach Miller questioned why the Lake & Forest Club’s system wasn’t connected to the town’s system when it was developed.

Pardieck said at that time everybody had septic systems. In the 1960s, a sanitary sewer system was constructed at the club, and everything went into a big septic system.

In 2000, that system was torn out and the present one was installed, and the wastewater treatment plant was built, he said.

At this time, everything treated at the club’s wastewater treatment plant is discharged into Huff Creek, he said.

There has been some discharge of contaminated affluent into the creek in the past, Pardieck said.

“But we hope it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

Miller said there is more to the proposal than the town’s system’s ability to handle the increase in wastewater including legal issues and the advantage the town would have for taking on new users and the additional funds from those new customers.

“Is it going to be worth the offset for any potential liability?” he said. “We have to make sure it makes sense. The question here is what’s in the best interest of the town and what’s in the best interest for the taxpayers.”

Hunsucker said there is extra capacity built into the system, but he didn’t have specific information at the meeting.

Council members agreed to work with Hunsucker to get that information and to answer Councilwoman Crystal Stuckwisch asked about how much capacity would be left for future growth if the council allowed the Lake & Forest Club to hook up to the town’s sewer system.

Miller also said the council would have to write another ordinance to be able to bill customers based off just sewage affluent as opposed to based off water usage as it presently being done.

“That itself raises legal issues,” he said.

Miller also said without board authority, carving out an exception for part of the community in a unique way is probably not a good idea.

“We have laws, in fact, to prevent that from happening,” he said.

Robinson said doing so could open a can of worms.

The Lake only has one water meter for all 84 houses, Pardieck said.

At this time, IDEM is not pushing the club to do anything at this time, but it takes two to two and half years or more to get a new wastewater treatment in place at the Lake & Forest, Pardieck said.

He also estimated it would take at least a year for the Lake & Forest Club to connect to the town’s system.