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Street woes stalling sewage project

By Melissa Glisan 3 min read

SMITHFIELD – A collapsing street could stall completion of a multimillion-dollar sewage project by a few weeks, borough council said Tuesday. Because of the conditions underneath Church Street Extension, crews cannot install the sewer main or repair the road surface, said council president Jack Frith.

When coal was mined along the side of the road, the U.S. Office of Surface Mining (OSM) directed the contractor to leave coal stumps, pillars of coal to support the road deck.

After the coal was removed, Frith said, the road began deteriorating rapidly.

That is when the borough learned that “we were stumped out of our stumps,” said councilman Orville Hornsby.

To rectify the situation, the OSM hired a contractor to place concrete injections in the spot where the coal stumps should have been, but it wasn’t enough, said Frith.

Glenn Johnston, the contractor awarded the sewage construction project through the Georges Creek Municipal Authority, has worked to bolster the road by placing fill from the project.

Frith noted that this effort isn’t enough to maintain the integrity of the main sewer line and support the taps to individual residences.

However, in order to close out a loan from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PENNVEST), the Georges Creek authority must build the main line. The authority managed to secure permission to postpone work at Church Street Extension until the road issue has been resolved, but it couldn’t do the same with PENNVEST.

Frith noted that the OSM hasn’t moved to finish correcting the problem since the failed concrete injections. Council agreed to appeal to U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Johnstown), since he helped the borough secure a grant through the Army Corps of Engineers for the sewage project.

In another matter, council reappointed Mayor Chuck Cieszynski to the sewage authority board.

With construction on the project set to wrap up in a few weeks, council noted that the entire board would soon be dismissed for reorganization under new articles of incorporation to include representatives from Georges Township.

Frith suggested that the authority be reminded that when drafting new bylaws, the board can reduce the size of the board from nine members to seven.

In the past, the size of the board was raised from five to nine members in order to gain quorums at meetings, he said.

Now, with Georges Township naming one-third of the new authority members, Frith said, it should be easier to make a quorum with a smaller board.

Moving to other business, council voted to have John Over, the borough engineer, advertise for bids for the annual road maintenance project.

The project, which has a budget of $50,000, should address the worst streets, such as Stewart and Black Hill roads, Frith said.

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