Authority to purchase water system
DUNBAR TWP. – The North Fayette County Municipal Authority will use a $150,000 line of credit from First National Bank to help finance its purchase of the Redstone Township Water Company’s Royal Division. Bob Softcheck, authority manger, said the interest rate from the temporary loan amounts to roughly 8 percent.
While the purchase price was set at $110,000, Softcheck said, the authority would keep the remaining money on hand with the intent to pay off the loan as soon as possible.
Softcheck added the authority took out a line of credit instead of tapping into its trust fund to save time since the sale’s closing would be completed within 48 hours pending final approval from the Public Utility Commission.
The authority entered into an agreement with Redstone’s owner in March, adding customers in the areas of Smock, Grindstone and Rowes Run to its service list.
With the purchase, Softcheck said customers would actually see a $30 decrease in their quarterly bills since North Fayette would no longer be selling water in bulk to Redstone, which passed the rate on at a higher price.
In a separate matter, the authority’s filter plant received a satisfactory performance rating following an evaluation in April from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
According to the report, officials noted no major problems concerning water quality characteristics.
The report also cited several areas of progress and recommendations for the authority to address that included the amount of time chlorine can react before the treated water reaches the first customer, reducing the time to run the water filters, replacing the coal and sand in two filters and replacing one filter all together, the lack of an effective, up-to-date operation and maintenance plan, now on hand at the plant, and new operator certification requirements.
Overall, Softcheck said the filter plant is working well. “We’ve always been satisfactory but this is the best (report) yet because we addressed some issues that were outstanding.”
Turning to other business, the authority awarded contracts to Greensburg Environmental Contracting Systems Inc. for $73,759 to renovate a water filter and transfer sand and coal material into another filter along with Allegheny Restoration Inc. of Greensburg for concrete restoration at $21,000.
Softcheck said the initial bids were estimated at $90,000 and $25,000 respectively.