photo by Jack Latta

The construction of a new lift station between North Lake Drive and Arnold Avenue is one of the final pieces of a comprehensive project to separate Prestonsburg’s sanitary and storm sewers.

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PRESTONSBURG — A project to help update and improve Prestonsburg’s city sewer and storm drainage is nearing completion, as the city utilities work to complete a new and improved lift station.

Currently crews are working on the lift station and the upgrades at the treatment plant which will complete the project that began several years ago. “This will be the final piece of the project,” said Prestonsburg Utilities information officer David Ellis.

According to Ellis, the project brought about by a mandate from the state which called for the separation of sewer and storm lines. “We have been under a consent agreement with the state,” said Ellis. “Once we complete this final part, it will release us from that agreement.”

The new lift station currently going in across from Giovanni’s on North Lake Drive will handle most of the city’s sanitary sewer flow from the north and west. According to Ellis, the new sanitary sewer pump station replaces one that was put in place in 1963.

Prestonsburg Utilities has already completed projects to separate the sewer from the storm drain lines, which has helped the city with back water during heavy rains, and foul odors from stagnant sewer lines. “There is no odor in town, anymore,” says Ellis. “What odor there is comes from the plant.”

Ellis says he believes once they complete the pump station in the next few months, Prestonsburg will be one of the first cities in the state to be compliant with the new mandate.

The Prestonsburg sewer project dates back more than five years when the city government became inundated with complaints about sewer smells wafting up through the storm drains. Construction on the project began in earnest in 2008 when the city began tearing up streets to replace the old sewer lines and disconnect them from the storm drains.