Johnson v. City of Louisville

STANLEY, Commissioner. Louisville by ordinance has declared necessary for the protection of the public health of its citizens the construction of a plant and facilities for the treatment and disposal of sewage before its discharge into the Ohio River from public sewers. It is necessary not only for the pressing local need but to meet a demand and order of the state Water Pollution Control Commission, KRS 220.580-220.650, created as a state agency for purposes of the Ohio River Valley Sanitation Compact, an interstate compact approved by Congress to abate and control pollution of the waters of the Ohio River basin, Acts of 74th Congress, 2d Session, Joint Resolution June 8, 1936, Public Resolution 104, 49 Stat. 1490, 33 U.S.C.A. § 567a, and Act June 30, 1948, 80th Congress, 2d Sessions, Public Law 845, 62 Stat. 1155, 33 U.S.C.A. § 466 et seq., and ratified by the General Assembly of Kentucky. Acts of 1940, Ch. 148, now KRS 220.550-220.570. To finance the construction of the facility, the ordinance directs submission to the voters of the city at the ensuing election the question of incurring an indebtedness of $6,000,000 by the issuance of general obligation bonds and levying an annual tax for interest and the sinking fund. The circuit court approved the proposed action in this declaratory judgment suit. Throughout many years Louisville financed the construction of its sewers by taxation or general obligation bonds. The question of its power to do so now arises from the relationship and powers of the Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District (hereinafter Metropolitan), itself a municipal corporation functioning both within and without the city boundaries. See Rash v. Louisville & Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District, 309 Ky. 442, 217 S.W.2d 232. Our several previous cases relating to Metropolitan and the city and their respective or joint operations related to the control, management and operation of the facilities turned over to Metropolitan by virtue of an ordinance adopted pursuant to an enabling statute enacted in 1946. KRS, Ch. 76. The question here is whether the city may lawfully make an additional capital investment in the sewer system for such fundamental purpose as that contemplated. Complication springs from the duality of the two municipal corporations and the fact that Metropolitan covers and serves not only the city of Louisville but several smaller incorporated towns and the unincorporated part of the county. The challenge of what is effectually an appropriation of city funds rests upon the view that it would be made to a separate distinct municipality, which ordinarily cannot be legally done.