By Tabitha Evans Moore
EDITOR & PUBLISHER

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — A billing dispute addressed during Tuesday’s Metro Utility Department (MUD) Board brought up an interesting question: what happens when a property is the exception to an automatic rule, and the only record of that exception is what people remember?

Inside the Urban Services District, the area within Lynchburg’s former city limits, every property is billed for sewer automatically. MUD doesn’t meter wastewater. Instead, it charges a sewer rate based on how much water a house uses, on the assumption that whatever water goes in leaves through the sewer line. Nothing in the billing system checks whether a house is physically connected.

The house at 385 Main Street was never connected to Lynchburg’s public sewer line, and for reasons that make sense.

According to MUD Board member Glen Thomas, Roy Bobo, who built the house in 1948, chose a septic tank instead. Sewer lines generally rely on gravity: Wastewater flows downhill from a house into the main line. The house sits lower than the line, so connecting would have meant installing a pump to push wastewater uphill, along with the cost of buying, powering and maintaining it. A septic tank needed none of that.

Steve May, who sold the house to Jim Dore, told The Lynchburg Times he knew about the tank and had it pumped twice. May said he could not recall whether he was billed for sewer. Dore said he knew nothing about it until a construction crew found the tank while digging in his backyard.

“Everything worked fine. I just thought we were on city sewer,” Dore explained to the Board.

He asked the board to refund thousands of dollars in sewer charges for service he paid for but never received.

The Metro Utility Department board voted 4-0 Tuesday night to refund part of those charges, covering sewer billed from April 2025 through September 2026. Members tied that date to sewer inspection footage from April 29, 2025, recorded during the department’s sewer rehabilitation work on Main Street. Board Chairman Greg Guinn said MUD should have learned then that the house wasn’t connected. The refund is expected to come to just over $1,000, though the exact figure hasn’t been calculated. The board also agreed not to charge Dore a sewer tap fee when he connects the house to the system. Those taps run around $1700, according to MUD staff.

The offer falls well short of what Dore asked for. He told the board MUD’s records, which go back only to 2022 because of a billing system change, show about $4,600 in sewer charges on the property. He estimated the total over his years of ownership could be $7,000 to $8,000.

THE BOARD: NOT LIABLE, BUT WILLING TO HELP

Chairman Guinn, presiding over his first meeting in the role, said the Metro Attorney Bill Reider advised that MUD is not financially responsible for the charges and that verifying a property’s utilities falls to the buyer. Guinn said he favored helping Dore anyway.

“I agree 100% we need to do whatever we can to help the man,” Guinn said.

MUD’s own rate schedule already allows sewer charges to be removed when water doesn’t go down the drain. Customers who notify the office before filling a swimming pool can have the meter read before and after and be billed only water for the fill.

Guinn said Dore’s case made him wonder whether other properties are being billed for sewer they don’t receive. MUD does not know whether any are. No review of other accounts was voted on Tuesday.

The MUD office will calculate the refund and prepare a written offer, and the utility manager will present it to Dore. If Dore turns it down, Guinn said further discussion would go through the metro attorney.

Dore told the board he plans to connect the house to the sewer and has ordered a grinder pump to push wastewater uphill to the line.

Voting for the refund were Greg Guinn, Glen Thomas, Charles “Boo” Johnston and Payton Keller. Darrel Richards was absent. •

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