Could a sewage treatment pump be a backdoor to development of Lexington farmland?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Keeping the Mint Lane pump station would cost roughly $19.6 million.
- Moving the pump station to Mill Ridge Farm would cost roughly $24.9 million.
- Since Jan. 1, 2015, Mint Lane has had more than 13.1 million gallons of overflows.
A controversial study to determine the location of a much-needed sewage pump station found its current spot near Dunbar High School would be the cheapest and most cost-effective option, documents released Tuesday show.
To keep and expand the current pump station, which suffers from frequent overflows, at Mint Lane on property owned by the Fayette County Public Schools system would cost roughly $19.6 million, the $160,000 study done by Stantec showed. A pump station moves sewage and wastewater to the city’s two treatment plants — Town Branch and West Hickman.
That pump station has to be replaced as part of a 2011 consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to upgrade the city’s aging sewer and stormwater system.
To build the pump station on Mill Ridge Farm on Bowman Lane would cost roughly $24.9 million, the study found. The cost to put the pump station at Blue Grass Airport is by far the steepest: $48.4 million.
The location of the pump station has been controversial since August, when the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council took the unusual step of directing city staff to look at Mill Ridge Farm, which is outside the city’s urban service area or development boundary, as a possible location for the pump station.
In addition, the council also asked staff to look at costs for locating the pump station at the airport.
The Mint Lane pump station has had more than 13.1 million gallons in sanitary sewer overflows since Jan. 1, 2015, city records show.
Mill Ridge Farm owners have previously said they hope to develop part of the area into an upscale housing development. They hosted a community meeting that included a presentation of those designs in June 2025, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by the Lexington Herald-Leader.
That meeting took place two months before the council directed city water quality officials to include Mill Ridge Farm in the pump location study.
Price Bell, one of the owners of Mill Ridge Farm, said in an interview Tuesday the farm did not ask to be included in the sewer location study so it could build on the property. Moving the pump station downstream still makes the most sense for future growth, he said.
The farm will follow city processes to add part of the land to the growth boundary if and when the farm is developed, he said.
Acting Environmental Services and Public Works Commissioner Charlie Martin told the council during an April 14 work session meeting there are other factors besides costs to consider.
In 2023, the city has also added a new area to the urban service or growth boundary off of Parkers Mill, near the Mint Lane pump station. The Mint Lane pump station at Dunbar can accommodate that new expansion area, but developers would have to add a pump. It’s typical for developers to pay for infrastructure in new expansion areas.
If the pump station was added to Mill Ridge Farm, a pump would not be needed. Gravity could be used to get the new waste in that expansion area to the pump.
The city would still have to negotiate with Fayette County Public Schools to get the land needed to upgrade and expand the current location, he said.
“This much cheaper than building a new pump station,” Martin said, because the plans include rehabilitating the current pump station.
But the current site is difficult to get to and not ideal, he said. However, the Mill Ridge Farm location also has challenges.
In addition to costing $5 million more than the current site, the Mill Ridge Farm location has two underground streams that could be disrupted if the pump station was moved to the farm, he said.
Neighbors voice alarm, concern over Mill Ridge location
A dozen neighbors of Mill Ridge Farm and agricultural interest groups told the Lexington council during the Tuesday work session that putting the pump station on private property was an end-game around the urban service boundary.
“The urban service boundary should not be up for sale,” said John Phillips, a member of the 2023 committee that suggested which areas should be added to the boundary and owner of Darby Dan Farm. “You are preordaining an area for expansion that is not wanted and not needed.”
Phillips and others said the reason the city does not allow infrastructure outside its growth or development boundary is to respect that growth boundary.
“It keeps the planning process clean and it keeps it objective,” Phillips said.
Bret Jones of Ardie Stud was blunt.
“It’s a bad precedent and horrible optics,” Jones said.
Robert James, the president of the Fayette County Farm Bureau, also cautioned the council it could set a precedent that could undo decades of planning that has protected Lexington farmland for generations and has made Lexington unique.
“Placing (the pump station) outside the boundary would allow a de facto, ad hoc expansion of the urban service boundary,” James said.
Mill Ridge says conservation easement, not development, driving request for pump station
Bell said Mill Ridge Farm has suffered from repeated flooding in an area around a creek. To help with that flooding and the restoration of a creek bed, Mill Ridge Farm has applied for a type of conservation easement.
Bell said state officials told Mill Ridge Farm to get the conservation easement, the pump station on Mint Lane should be moved downstream onto Mill Ridge Farm or another location.
Bell said they have no immediate plans to develop a portion of the storied horse farm. The city recently established a new process to add land to the urban service boundary. If Mill Ridge Farm was to be developed, the farm would follow that new process, he said.
“A pump station does not affect this process at all,” Bell said.
Moreover, the farm will continue to raise thoroughbreds and only a portion of the farm will be developed if and when that happens, he said.
Moving the pump station downstream could mean more capacity in general, Bell said. The current designs for the Mint Lane pump station is based on 2008 data. It leads little room for growth — even inside the growth boundary, he said.
Martin, however, said the pump station in that area has to be a specific size because the pump station it moves sewage to in the Elkhorn area can only handle a certain amount of sewage. The new wet weather storage tank proposed in the Mint Lane area will help manage overflows during rain events, he said.
However, the Mill Ridge location would allow a much larger wet weather storage tank, Martin said.
The Bells lobbied for Mill Ridge Farm to be included in a 2023 expansion of the urban service boundary. During a September 2023 meeting, Price Bell urged a committee tasked with identifying land to be added to the expansion area to include the farm.
Bell said he only lobbied for inclusion of Mill Ridge Farm in the 2023 expansion only after a city-sponsored sewer study rated Mill Ridge Farm highest in terms of ease of adding sewer and stormwater improvements.
Mill Ridge Farm was ultimately not included in the new expansion areas, which includes more than 2,500 acres along Winchester Road, Athens Boonesboro Road, Interstate 75 and Parkers Mill Road.
Council raises questions about cost, future expansion
Councilman Hil Boone, who represents the 12th District that includes much of the rural area, made a motion to select the Mint Land location during Tuesday’s work session. But that motion died 9-4 as many council members said they wanted to review the full Stantec study before making a decision.
“I don’t think we have all the information,” said Councilwoman Whitney Elliott Baxter.
Martin will return to the April 28 work session where the issue will be addressed again, but said he needs an answer soon. The Mint Lane pump station is one of the last projects the city needs to complete as part of its agreement with the EPA. All of those projects have to be completed by December 2030.
The city had previously picked the current site on Mint Lane for the pump station replacement project, which also includes a new 4.5 million gallon wet weather storage tank. After the council raised questions about the pump station’s location in August, the city had to move other projects forward after the Mint Lane pump station was delayed, Martin said in an interview.
“We have to have an answer by early 2027,” Martin said.
