Future growth fuels Saxonburg sewer costs
The Saxonburg Area Sewer Authority charges the most for new sewer connections of any authority in Butler County.
The authority's manager, Paul Cornetti, said the high costs are to pay for facility upgrades that other sewer authorities will one day need to imitate.
The Saxonburg Area Sewer Authority took on $54.85 million in debt in 2007, he said, when building its facility in Renfrew. Today, it owes about $39.80 million.
“It's just a matter of growth,” Cornetti said. “Growth will always end up requiring people to upgrade facilities.”
And it is future and current growth, he says, in the authority's coverage zone of Clinton, Jefferson, Middlesex and Penn townships plus Saxonburg that demands it runs a facility that can handle more than it currently needs. The Renfrew plant handles about a million gallons of sewage a day, and it could handle twice that amount, Cornetti said.
Tap-in fees, or fees for new connections to the sewer system, can run as high as about $7,400 when all is finished. The rate is cheaper for homes built in formally planned developments, which covers the majority of development within the authority's boundaries. But even at lower rates around $5,000, the fees are still among the county's highest.Cornetti said they need those rates to pay down their debts.He likens it to a mortgage. The authority, and therefore its customers, are paying a lot, he admits. But he maintains that other entities are merely delaying the same pain.<i>Read more about this story in Sunday's Butler Eagle.</i>
