SOUTH BELOIT — City engineers and officials proposed several payment options at a public meeting Wednesday night for homeowners who require costly repairs to the sewer laterals that link their homes and buildings to the city sewer main.

About 160 laterals are faulty. Excess groundwater has been seeping in through cracks and leaks and has overwhelmed the city’s wastewater treatment plant. Engineers must repair or replace the laterals, and in some cases, that will mean digging into front yards or through basement floors.

Homeowners, by city code, are responsible for the upkeep of the laterals. The repair work is estimated to cost anywhere between $500 or $5,000 depending on how much work is needed.

The estimated average cost will be about $2,000, City Engineer Tim Bronn said.

The faulty laterals were found on 11 city streets. South Beloit will post the addresses of homes needing repairs on its website. The city also will send out several letters notifying homeowners of the repairs. Residents also may call City Hall at 815-389-3023 to find out whether their house is on the list or to ask other questions about the project.

About 30 residents were in the audience Wednesday, and some were upset they’ll have to pay for the repairs.

But Nick Anastasi, a lifelong South Beloit resident, said it’s just time for homeowners to bite the bullet and fix the problem.

“It is what it is,” he said. “As much as I don’t want my taxes to go up and feel for some of these people, we have no choice. We can’t exist like this — we’re putting raw sewage in the river. We inherited this problem, and it’s sad, but you have to move on.”

Former City Council member Maurice Kehoe, who will not need to pay for repair work, called for the entire city to divide up the bill so the affected homeowners won’t have to foot the entire bill for lateral repairs.

City Attorney Roxanne Sosnowski said that won’t be possible. The public will be funding main line sewer repairs, which will cost roughly $1.5 million, she said.

The repair project began in 2011 and must be completed by May 2013 to comply with Illinois Environmental Protection Agency deadlines. During the next two years, engineers will excavate and replace 1.4 miles of sewer pipes, some of which date to the 1920s.

In 2009, millions of gallons of excess groundwater leaked through cracked pipes and overwhelmed the wastewater treatment plant. The city began pumping untreated wastewater into the Rock River on and off for several weeks. The IEPA fined the city for the transgression and imposed a series of deadlines to fix the sewer system.

Engineers spent about a year monitoring the pipes to see what could be repaired and what needed to be replaced. The most extensive part of the project will begin this spring.

City Council members will likely schedule a second meeting in March to discuss the project.

Reach staff writer Greg Stanley at gstanley@rrstar.com or 815-987-1369.