Miranda Pederson/Daily NewsKevin Baxter of Bowling Green, a Stewart & Richey Construction Co. employee, directs a dump truck owned by S&R Excavation Wednesday on Lovers Lane. Construction crews are preparing the Lovers Lane area for new sewer lines.

&#8220It is a great pleasure for me to be here today, and talk about something so colorful and romantic as a sewer system,” Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon said this morning.

He drew a brief laugh from the small crowd under a tent beside Lovers Lane and Mt. Victor Road, which assembled for the groundbreaking of a $626,000 project to lay 5,400 feet of 12-inch sewer main along Lovers Lane.

It will serve the rapidly developing area from Lovers Lane’s intersection with Cemetery Road, south to the site of LifeSkills’ soon-to-be-built headquarters.

&#8220We expect for all of it to be complete by December of ’06,” said Alan Vilines, general manager of the Warren County Water District, which will own and operate the sewer. Branches to serve nearby development can strike off from it for years to come, he said.

The sewer work by S & R Excavation is being coordinated with the widening of Lovers Lane to five lanes and relocation and enlargement of existing water lines, according to a water district news release.

The new sewer line is being paid for by a grant from this year’s General Assembly session. Vilines thanked local legislators, most of whom were present, for their consistent support.

They also arranged for a grant of more than $1 million for sewer lines along the Natcher Parkway to serve the Plano and Dye Ford Road areas, Vilines said. That line will serve growing subdivisions and a new elementary school without raising the water district’s bills, he said.

House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said expanding water and sewer systems across Kentucky has become a major priority of state legislators. Water pipes now reach to almost all areas; sewers are very expensive, but vital, especially for rapidly-growing areas, he said.

With the planned widening and already-announced construction on Lovers Lane, the sewer line became a necessity, Richards said.

&#8220This whole area is going to open up,” he said.

Buchanon cited LifeSkills, Living Hope Baptist Church and a &#8220yet-to-be-announced $10 million medical facility” as examples of the development made possible on Lovers Lane by such projects.

&#8220They wouldn’t be here, if not for this sewer project,” he said.

Providing sewer service is part of elected officials’ responsibility to the environment, future generations and the local economy, Buchanon said.

After the official remarks, water district board members lined up with Vilines, Buchanon, Richards, local state Reps. Jim DeCesare and Rob Wilkey, and state Sen. Brett Guthrie to pitch ceremonial shovelfuls of dirt from a pile.

The water district has 1,000 miles of water mains in its service area, but only 90 miles of sewer, according to a water district fact sheet. It buys water from and sends sewage to Bowling Green Municipal Utilities.

&#8220Our system already has the capacity to support what the water district is doing out in that area,” said Miles McDaniel, BGMU manager of Business Development & Marketing.

In mid-August the utilities agreed for the first time to set boundaries between their respective sewer systems within city limits. BGMU is now building sewer lines to serve Lovers Lane south of the water district project, from the Lovers Lane Farms development to Scottsville Road.

&#8220We are looking to complete the project at the end of November,” McDaniel said.

BGMU’s work is estimated to cost $1.5 million, for which the utility is seeking a low-interest loan from the state, he said.