Getting Started

The city ordinance of July, 1946 didn’t automatically establish the new sewer district. Several controversies remained to be settled before the agency could even begin organizing.

One major controversy had even delayed passage of the ordinance: the question of the constitutionality. Some members of the Board of Aldermen said the issue of constitutionality should be settled before passage; Mayor E. Leland Taylor contended that the ordinance couldn’t be challenged in court until after it was passed.

Lack of money severely limited MSD's activities during its first year. Major sewer improvements were being planned, however, including extensive work required to relocate the sewers along the route of the Ohio River floodwall — work that would be financed by the federal government. This photo shows one of those early projects.

Courier-Journal and Louisville Times Photo by Charley Darneal

The aldermen finally agreed to a compromise: they passed the ordinance, and a former city law director filed suit in September challenging both the ordinance and state law.

Noisy opposition also arose from a group from the Shawnee area, led by a candidate for the state legislature, who claimed the new sewer district would "swindle taxpayers out of their property, bring about personal bankruptcy and the loss of thousands of homes." The whole program, he said, was "slyly communistic" and part of a plot to "nationalize property after making taxes too burdensome for property owners."

The newly appointed board of the Metropolitan Sewer District consisted of Norvin Green, Bruce Hoblitzel Sr. and Paul M. Kendall, representing the city, and Henry B. Schaffner and Richard R. Williams, representing the county. In August they hired a legal counsel and a secretary-treasurer, and noted that as yet there was no source of money to begin operations.

Jefferson Circuit Court ruled in favor of the new agency in early October, and the state Court of Appeals granted its approval in early November. On November 22, 1946, the Board adopted a resolution taking possession of the city’s sewer and drainage system — and borrowed $50,000 at 1.25 percent interest to start operations.

In early December, the Board hired Metcalf & Eddy, consulting engineers, to prepare a plan for organizing the MSD staff, and to develop a construction program and a schedule of rates and charges. Later that month, the board adopted its first employment policies, effective January 2, 1947.

A Troublesome Heritage: Substandard Construction

Sometime before the spring of 1944, residents along the South Fork of Beargrass Creek complained of an unusually vile stench coming from the water. The health department traced the source to a major break in an old Camp Taylor sewer line. Neither Louisville nor Jefferson County would take responsibility.

Camp Taylor had been built in only three months in the summer of 1917, just after the nation entered World War I. It became the nation’s largest training camp, housing 47,500 men — about one-fifth of the population of Louisville. The buildings, and even some of the sewer lines, were made of wood. Quality was compromised in the rush to complete the camp.

After the war, the camp was closed, and the land was sold piecemeal to individuals and developers. No records of its sewer system were preserved.

In May, 1944 the city accepted a federal government offer to pay $23,657 to repair the sewer. To stop the stench while the work was in progress, the city works department built an earthen dam in the concrete channel of Beargrass Creek near Eastern Parkway, and diverted the entire polluted flow of the creek into the sewer below the creekbed.

The Camp Taylor sewers were part of MSD’s legacy. Sewer and drainage problems would plague Camp Taylor residents and the sewer district for decades to come. Unfortunately, it was not an isolated instance — and not one confined to past mistakes. Problems with substandard sewer and drainage systems would plague many subdivisions built outside MSD’s service area in the years to come. MSD would find itself inheriting these problems for the rest of the century as it expanded its service area into the suburbs.