Discord stalling sewer upgrade
Western Butler County Authority, while not yet seeing the questions posed to it by three of its member municipalities following a meeting in mid-September, looks forward to a more collaborative approach toward its next major upgrade.
The authority, known as WBCA, submitted a proposed Act 537 plan to Jackson and Lancaster townships, Harmony and Zelienople — the four municipalities that incorporated WBCA — in November 2020. Although Jackson Township and Harmony approved the plan, Lancaster and Zelienople took no action on the plan until WBCA withdrew the proposal in June.
Much of the pause for Lancaster and Zelienople had to do with the cost of the project — roughly $64 million combined between a pump station upgrade and an overhaul of WBCA's water pollution control facility — and the impact on ratepayers.And despite a protracted back-and-forth between the two municipalities and WBCA about whether cheaper options were available, the question still remains.WBCA manager Autumn Crawford said while the authority provided a slew of answers to Lancaster and Zelienople over the costs of the project, the wall between the authority and the municipalities remains.“There's some sort of breakdown in communications where we're either not understanding the questions in the way that they are asking it or they are not understanding the answers in the way we are providing them,” Crawford said.That is evident in the questions jointly formulated by Harmony, Lancaster and Zelienople during a Sept. 15 meeting.Among the questions is one about what the rate impacts will be should the projected residential and commercial development — and the thousands of dollars in tap-in fees associated with each new building — not pan out.Another question was regarding whether alternative forms of treatment could result in a lower upfront cost.Crawford said WBCA has answered similar — if not identical — questions multiple times, and provided the Eagle with letters WBCA sent its member municipalities indicating the same.John Trant, former interim Lancaster township manager, said Sept. 15 that the municipalities, by posing the same questions, wanted answers in more digestible ways.“The desired outcome is that there's clarity on both sides,” Trant said. “So, we've articulated, the municipalities, the questions that they want to have answered on one piece of paper, and we would then expect that the authority will reply … in one cohesive answer that doesn't just, as I said earlier, refer to the (Act) 537 plan.”But, for Crawford, sending the same questions in the same way won't help as much as a face-to-face meeting with representatives from all the municipalities talking in real time.“It is frustrating for us that they're indicating that we've never answered their questions. We clearly have a paper trail that we've answered their questions,” Crawford said. “It just feels like, no matter what the questions are or how many meetings we have, we never really get at the heart of what to do and how to move forward and what the solution is.”
That frustration is what led WBCA to ask each of its four municipalities to designate two representatives to serve on a steering committee, one designed to seek clarity not only on the answers WBCA provides, but also on the questions posed by the municipalities.The authority did so following its rescinding of the proposed plan, which came when it received funding to move forward with the proposed pump station upgrade.Harmony, Jackson and Lancaster have each designated two representatives to the steering committee.Crawford said the purpose of the committee, the idea for which came from Zelienople, is to adopt a more “collaborative effort,” as each municipality has its own goals and concerns about the project.One possibility of the committee, Crawford said, is to have an independent third-party review the plan, which is one of the goals identified at the Sept. 15 meeting.“There are some other things, in conversations I've had, that they want to see come out of the collaborative approach,” she said. “The sewer lateral ownership being one, the I&I (inflow and infiltration) being two and financial solvency being three, even though we've over-adequately shown that it is financially solvent already.”
Different prioritiesEach of the authority's four member municipalities is different, and as a result they have different priorities.Jackson and Lancaster, for example, may be more focused on expanding capacity for their growing populations; Crawford said Zelienople has a bigger concern about its aging infrastructure and the rainwater infiltration into the nearly century-old terra cotta pipes.The now-rescinded proposal shows a significant amount of rainwater inflow into the system. But roughly half, Crawford said, seems to be from the sewage laterals — the pipes coming off the main and into a property.But fixing the inflow, Crawford said, even if WBCA took ownership of the laterals, is not the be-all, end-all solution.“Dollar for dollar, you're going to spend so much more money trying to fix that problem and not address the issue of aging infrastructure at your own facility,” she said. “It's not a sound financial investment.”She compared it to a 1991 Buick LeSabre: Even replacing all of the rusted-out and worn-out parts, while helping, would not be as sound of an investment as buying a new car given the benefits — such as safety and fuel efficiency — that come with the latter.For a new sewage plant, those benefits are capacity and clean effluent.The issue, according to Crawford, comes not from the inflow itself, but from the plant's capacity. Infiltration into the pipes will happen regardless, so the system should be built to handle it.“A plant should have a peak factor of four to five times its average capacity. So, if our average capacity was 2.2 (million gallons per day) and we should have a peak factor of four to five times, you're going to have a peak capacity of 11 million gallons,” she said. “Right now, our plant has an actual peak capacity of 4.5. That's not 11.”Given the growth currently going on in southwestern Butler, the rescinded plan notes WBCA projects a hydraulic overload of its systems in five to 10 years, and an overload of organic waste within five years.
Despite the differing priorities among the municipalities, all four and the authority ultimately have the same goal: Providing sewage services to the properties in the service area.Beyond that, the authority hopes to do it in an environmentally responsible way and all parties have expressed a desire to do it at a low cost to the ratepayers.For at least Lancaster and Zelienople, that concern — about the cost its residents pay for sewage — is expressed with respect to the debt necessary for taking on the $64 million project. But WBCA has a different view.“In November, we'll be coming up on a year, and we'll be further away than we were when we started,” Crawford said.She added that comes with costs: Interest rates are likely to be higher, and grant opportunities keep slipping by the wayside.“Our goal is not nefarious, our goal is not more profit, our goal isn't some hidden agenda,” she said. “Our goal is responsible environmental discharge — and by responsible I mean financially, sustainably and environmentally — and this project has become our prize hog in a way because we have home-grown it, we have gone through the right channels, we have done it the right way, we have all the facts and analysis. And it's heartbreaking that it's being held up for the reasons that it is.”The municipalities have a separate concern as well, which was aired at the Sept. 15 meeting: Whether the roughly $60 million in borrowing will affect the municipalities' borrowing capacity. Under Pennsylvania law, each municipality can only borrow or guarantee a certain amount of money, and the municipalities form the authority.Crawford disputed that concern, saying the authority's debt, because it is paid for by rate payers, won't burden the municipalities' borrowing power.Zelienople too has a unique concern. Unlike any other municipality in Butler County, it also provides electric services to its properties.In a May 26 email to WBCA, Zelienople expressed a concern about rate increases for sewage affecting its finances via the power utility.In addition to the different priorities being a sticking point between the members and the authority, sharing the same goals has also driven a wedge between them.
