FRACKVILLE - The Frackville Area Municipal Authority may seek an agreement with Mahanoy Township to be reimbursed for engineering costs involved in investigating a proposed sewer connection.
The discussion about which entity will pay the costs in investigating the possibility of connecting the township villages of New Boston and Morea to the sewer system was part of Wednesday's FAMA meeting.
Mahanoy Township is in the process of revising its 2009 Act 537 plan through its new engineers, ARRO Consulting Inc., in order to provide sewer service to its homes and businesses. Due to the proximity of the villages to the FAMA system, the township contacted FAMA about providing the sewage service.
Working with Entech Engineering project manager Donald Cuff, FAMA has begun an investigation into the proposed sewer system connection. However, the investigation by Cuff includes costs that are being paid to Entech by the authority.
"Engineering fees for Mahanoy Township. Can they pay our engineering fees?" FAMA board President William Rhoades asked of authority solicitor Paul Domalakes.
"If Mahanoy Township is asking us to determine whether we have capacity or to develop a plan, yes, we can say we'll do that provided you pay the engineering fee," Domalakes said.
Rhoades said Cuff was in the FAMA office last week to get blueprints, maps and other information.
"We should be paid for that," Rhoades said.
"We're getting charged engineering fees for the work that he's doing," FAMA office manager Rhonda Frantz said. "We have to get some kind of agreement."
"We don't have any agreement with Mahanoy Township," Domalakes said. "If we ask Don to do work, we owe him money. Now, if we say to (township) that if you want us to do work to see if you can connect, let's have an agreement that you're going to pay those engineering fees."
Domalakes said there is a chance that a connection may not pan out after an investigation.
"All of it may come to nothing. We may find that the township can't connect, and in the process we'll spend a ton of money where we can't get reimbursed," Domalakes said.
Rhoades said that Cuff should be contacted to discuss the situation.
Domalakes asked Frantz, "We don't have a specific agreement with Don on this project, do we?"
"We don't have anything specific right now," Frantz said.
"Until we get much farther into this, we should talk to Don because there may be some point here that we're missing in terms of why we wouldn't want to do that," Domalakes said.
Since Cuff is on vacation, he will be contacted next week about the matter.