The Bradford Sanitary Authority adopted its 2010 budget Tuesday
with a $1 raise on sewer taxes.
The minimum bimonthly bill of $35 per customer was raised to
$37, meaning users will have to pay at least $18.50 a month.
Customers will be paying $3.70 per thousand gallons of sewage, up
from $3.50 per thousand gallons.
The authority’s overall expenses came to $2,062,450, while
revenue only reached $2,048,100, according to the budget. There
would be a deficit of more than $54,000 if taxes weren’t raised,
making the move a necessity, according to Chairman Dan Hartle.
“There are not as many customers in the area as there used to
be,” he said.
There are about 40,000 customers currently covered by the
authority, meaning the $1-per-month raise will leave a more
manageable $14,530 deficit. The rest of that shortage will be
covered by the authority’s reserve funds.
In other business, Hartle said he’ll will meet Thursday
afternoon at the Foster Township municipal building with state
Department of Environmental Protection officials and local leaders
to discuss the Act 537 Sewage Facilities Plan and related consent
order and agreement. Why specifically DEP is calling the meeting is
unclear.
“Anything more than that, I don’t really know,” Hartle said of
the session.
Bradford and its surrounding municipalities have long been under
a DEP-mandated consent order and agreement due to continued sewer
overflows and failure to submit plans on time for the Act 537
sewage plant upgrade and expansion — plans that have since been
finalized. At the meeting, consulting engineer Al Vanderpoel noted
that Foster, Bradford and Lafayette townships all reported no sewer
overflows for the month.
The agency had been withholding new sewer hook-ups — called EDUs
— from local governments as punishment for overflows and missed
deadlines. Last month, DEP did free up 50 EDUs for Bradford
Township, most of which went toward construction of a new dormitory
at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.
The authority did grant two EDUs at Tuesday’s meeting for an
empty spot at 723 and 723 1/2 E. Main St., the former location of
Sundahl Insurance. While it’s unclear what the space will be used
for, it appears the authority was granted the EDUs as a special
exception to its currently allotted number.
The authority also provided an EDU for a homeowner at Olean Road
in Foster Township.
Touching on Act 537 again, the authority announced it has
received results from the latest sewer flow study in Bradford,
which could affect how much the city pays into the sewage plant
upgrades.
Six locations were recommended for equalization tanks if I&I
— or inflow and infiltration of water into the sewage system — is
not curbed sufficiently, as officials hope to do. They include two
tanks on South Avenue; and one each at Mill Street, Charlotte
Avenue, West Corydon Street and the sewage treatment plant on
Seaward Avenue.
At least some of those tanks can be eschewed if enough I&I
reduction is performed beforehand. That means vigilantly fixing
infrastructure to keep storm water or other water from making it
into the sewers, causing overflows.
“I think the need … can be eliminated with moderate success with
the I&I (removal),” Gannett Fleming Inc. engineer Jack Rae
said.
