FRACKVILLE - The Frackville Area Municipal Authority will reconsider the request from Mahanoy Township to allow the villages of Morea and New Boston to connect to the system.
Thanks to a strong effort by FAMA in the past few years to reduce problems of clean water entering the treatment system, the amount of excessive infiltration (from below ground) and inflow (from the surface) is reduced enough to provide enough treatment capacity at the plant to take in more gallons of sewage.
The FAMA board discussed the matter at Wednesday's meeting after Entech Engineering project manager Donald Cuff spoke of a query from Mahanoy Township's new consulting engineering firm, ARRO Consulting Inc., which was appointed in February.
Cuff read a letter from ARRO project engineer William T. Orlosky that the firm is considering options for the revision of the township's 2009 Act 537 plan to provide sewage treatment service to residences and businesses. The plan is to install a distribution system that will connect to neighboring municipal sewer systems.
"They're asking if FAMA would consider accepting sewage from the Morea and New Boston areas," Cuff said. "They're estimating the flow from that area to be 59,000 gallons per day from 236 EDUs (equivalent dwelling unit)."
An EDU is a standard service unit is defined as one single-family dwelling unit or its equivalent.
"They've asked if the authority would be interested in considering providing service in that area," Cuff said. "Obviously, it would be on the basis that they (township) would have to get (sewage) to us and not the authority extending service to the area."
The township had contacted FAMA about two years ago about the same idea, but FAMA problems with clean water entering the system, but at the time the plant was operating beyond its licensed capacity, which prevented the authority to consider the idea at the time.
"As reported at your last meeting, the Chapter 94 report submitted to DEP (state Department of Environment Protection) in March that there is available capacity now at the plant," Cuff said.
Cuff said that 2013 showed a marked drop in the amount of sewage treated, due to both reducing the flow of clean water by finding the leaks, along with having a dry year. Cuff provided the board members with graphs showing the reduction in the past year.
Cuff recommended that FAMA contact the township to express its interest to serve those villages.
"Obviously, an agreement would have to be negotiated so the terms of the service could be defined," Cuff said.
FAMA President William Rhoades asked whether a meter could be installed to monitor the flows from the township, to which Cuff replied that a flow meter would be required.
Cuff also recommended that the authority should look into restructuring the agreement with the state Department of Corrections in place to serve the State Correctional Institution/Frackville. The amount of the prison's sewage bill is calculated on its percentage of the overall treatment levels of the entire system. He said by adding the additional flow from Morea and New Boston, the authority would not gain in treating more sewage.
"Basically it's replacing the Department of Corrections money with township money," Cuff said. "There are forms of agreements that the Department of Corrections has that clearly defines where there are fixed costs and it avoids that issue where you would be replacing dollars with dollars. If the authority would consider that, I would suggest that that also be undertaken."
The authority board approved contacting Mahanoy Township on ARRO's request.