Authority eyes streamlined solution to sewage project
The Authority of the Borough of Charleroi is expected to make a decision this summer on a system-wide project mandated by the state Department of Environmental Resources.
That project, which would extend ultimately to 2022, would guarantee the sewerage system captures and treats 85 percent of raw sewage flowing through the system during a wet weather flow.
The project though that officials from the authority and KLH Engineering presented to Charleroi council Thursday night would cut nearly in half the price tag originally proposed.
Ed Golenka, general manager of the Authority of the Borough of Charleroi, along with KHL senior Project manager Shawn Rosensteel and project engineer Samuel Gibson are presenting the plan to councils for each of the member communities.
The authority provides water and sewage service for customers in Charleroi, Fallowfield, Speers, Dunlevy and North Charleroi.
Golenka said the project presented Thursday is patterned after the sewerage system in Springfield, Ohio. He said authority officials have toured other facilities to devise the best, most cost-effective project.
The new alternative project would eliminate combined sewer overflow systems in Speers and Dunlevy and take all of the overflow to a treatment facility which would be built in Speers. It would also involve installation of a dual filter system at the waste water treatment plant. It would reuse existing structures within the sewerage system.
Councilman Frank Paterra criticized a borough-funded project in 2006 for which residents pay a quarterly fee of $46.50 to repay the bond issue.
Golenka said that project did reduce flows in Charleroi, but there was no pre-construction monitoring to determine by how much. Council President Paul Pivovarnik said the 2006 project should have not been undertaken by the borough. He said though that the new project would be undertaken by the authority, not the borough.
The first phase of the project must be completed by mid-2019 in order to meet the deadline for spending a Local Share Account grant. That grant requires such work be completed in Dunlevy and Speers.
Initial work proposed had a price tag of $66 million. Rosensteel said the new alternative could come in as low as $30 million to $35 million.
“It fits what we’ve been trying to accomplish,” Golenka said. “It took a change of engineering firms to bring new bright eyes to the project.”