Age is taking a toll on a sewer line south of the city, but plans call for replacing it at a cost of more than $80 million.

"You say it quick, it's not too bad," Buddy Morgan, manager of Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer, said of the price tag.

Morgan on Wednesday said the project will be paid for with a bond issue and that work would probably start in mid-summer. He said he wants the job to be complete in about two years.

"That line was only 27 years old, but it's concrete pipe," he said. "The lining is gone, the pipes have deteriorated tremendously and we've only got about two or three years worth of life left on that line."

The pipe is important because other lines feed into it on the way to a pollution control plant near Old Selma Road.

The pipe also runs parallel to Catoma Creek and not far from the home of Clarence Peterman, past president of the Johnson Neighborhood Association.

Peterman said "naturally" he and fellow residents would be concerned about a leakage of effluent and contamination, especially because they live in a low-lying area.

"We certainly don't want that," he said.

Morgan, asked about problem areas generally, said, "If you drew a line down I-85, and just said, 'South of there,' we've got about $400 million worth of work that needs to be done."

Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer's long-term needs also come amid national disputes in environmental and political circles about whether President Bush is committed to full federal funding to help boost local sewer and water projects.

Bush and Congress last year agreed to cut about a quarter-billion dollars and set the funding amount at about $1.09 billion, said Adam Krantz, spokesman for the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies. Now, Krantz said, the White House is proposing more than $360 million in cuts, which Congress is debating.

Morgan said he doesn't seek loans or any other kind of funding assistance from Capitol Hill.

"If you send a dollar to Washington with the hope of getting a dollar back in some form of a grant, by the time it filters down through all of the agencies and the bureaucracies that it has to get through, you're lucky if you get 10 cents of that dollar back," he added.

Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer has approximately $55 million to $56 million in its annual budget. Morgan said about $5 million to $6 million is spent yearly replacing sewer and water mains.

Morgan said while management practices and technology are improving, crews have to constantly replace old pipes or pipes that buckle in the shifting prairie soils.