Engineer to bid out sewage treatment plant
BROWNSVILLE – The Brownsville Municipal Authority Tuesday authorized Fayette Engineering to seek bids for the new sewage treatment plant and primary pump station mandated by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The authority has been under several state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) consent orders in recent years to either flood-proof the current plant or build a new plant above the flood plain. The second phase of the mandated improvements will include changes to the current collection system and pump stations, reducing the amount of storm water that enters the system and the amount of overflow that bypasses the plant.
In addition to giving approval to start the bid process, the authority Tuesday also passed several resolutions needed to complete the low-interest loan process with the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PENNVEST). The municipal authority has received preliminary approval for a $7.5 million loan from PENNVEST. Engineer Glenn Wolfe told the authority that the exact amount of the loan will depend on the actual project cost as determined by the bid process. If bids come in under $7.5 million, funding will be cut from the loan. If the bids are higher than $7.5 million, the authority will need to either petition PENNVEST for additional funding or come up with the money on its own.
Wolfe said he anticipates a closing on the loan by the end of November and final approval of the construction plans by the DEP much sooner than that. Wolfe said that once the construction permit is issued by the DEP, the authority will have 530 days to complete the project, and the bid process, which takes about a month, must be completed before the PENNVEST closing.
In other matters, the authority voted to reject a request from Luzerne Township to form a joint municipal authority. At present, the authority has service agreements with Luzerne, Redstone and Brownsville townships to provide service to portions of those municipalities, with the property owners in those municipalities billed the same as those in Brownsville Borough.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had any real problems with the Luzerne supervisors. I can’t see any advantages to doing it,” said authority member Dr. Bernard Dolobach.
Authority member Henry Vulcan said he has been on the authority since it was originally formed and can’t recall any problems with the current service agreements that have been in place for 36 years.
It was also noted that while additional property restoration work needs to be done in the Hiller area where a new line was installed to help prevent local flooding during heavy rains, only one homeowner reported receiving water in his basement during last Friday’s storm.
The house was recently constructed and is not one of the homes previously affected by flooding.