The Arizona City Sanitary District provides you with your sewer service. We are requesting your assistance to help ensure our ability to provide reliable utility service to you and your neighbors.
The Problem:
Each utility must have an unobstructed easement to and across your property to install and maintain the facilities (sewer, lines, poles, etc.) that are necessary to provide you and your neighbor's utility service and with the Sanitary District, the ability to disconnect your service for non-payment. Both the Arizona Corporation Commission and the individual utilities require these easements be granted, to be properly maintained and to remain unobstructed as a condition of receiving utility service. In most instances, an easement was created through the grant of a separate easement. These easements define areas that are intended to be preserved for the use of the utility, even though they cross property owned by you.
Over time, property owners sometimes place obstructions over or through the easements, such as fences, structures, trees, large shrubs, boulders, etc. When this happens, the utility has difficulty reaching its facilities when it is necessary to make upgrades, repairs and replacements or to perform normal maintenance. The obstructions can cause delays and add cost to the provision of utility service to you and your neighbors. This is why the utility has the right to remove the obstruction at the landowner's cost or to halt service until the landowner removes the obstruction. However, we appreciate the fact that no one wants to receive a notice of intent to terminate their utility service or find their fence, structure, landscaping removed, together with a bill for the cost of that removal.
The Solution:
In order to provide customers time to address any obstructions that may have been created over or through utility easements, we are providing this reminder and asking property owners to review their records as to the location of utility easements on their property (in Arizona City, most lots included an 8 foot easement across the rear portion of the lot).
Unless you granted the easement while owning the property, these easements should be identified in the title report you received when you purchased the property. Otherwise you can review the County Recorders Records. However, there may be separate easements for separate utilities.
We are also requesting each property owner voluntarily remove fences, structures, trees, large shrubs, boulders and other obstructions on, in or near the easement that limit the utilities' use of the easement or may create an unsafe condition for our employees.
The Arizona City Sanitary District is also commencing a review of our respective service area and is attempting to identify obvious obstructions on or through our easements. As the District identifies obstructions, property owners will be notified that an obstruction has been identified and needs to be removed.
Such notification will also start a formal process that could result in utility services being terminated until the situation is resolved. This is why we are asking you to voluntarily review your easements and remove any obstructions.
Should the District need immediate access to our easement that is obstructed, the District will request the obstruction be removed immediately or the District, at your cost, will remove the obstruction.
Summary:
We want to continue to provide you reliable sewer service. To do so, we need to ensure our utility easements remain unobstructed. We appreciate your cooperation in reviewing the utility easements that cross your property and voluntarily removing any fences, structures, boulders, trees, large shrubs and other obstructions that block access or constitute a hazard to our employees.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call the District Office at (520) 466-5203.
