CRANBERRY TWP — A planned inter-municipal connection between the Breakneck Creek Regional Authority and the township’s sewer system that would have resulted in the taking of land through eminent domain is now off the table.

At a meeting Thursday night, the Cranberry Township supervisors unanimously voted to terminate two inter-municipal sewer agreements with the neighboring Breakneck authority. The agreements had been created in 2019 and 2020 respectively in order to construct a gravity flow connection between Cranberry and Breakneck’s systems.

The connection would have presented an option to eliminate an old lift station located at Franklin Acres, which had “outlived its life expectancy,” according to township manager Dan Santoro. Now, the township plans to move forward with upgrading the station itself instead of bypassing it.

At the meeting, Santoro cited the ongoing evaluation of the Breakneck Creek Regional Authority by Pennsylvania American Water Company as one reason to end the project.

“There are a number of things that are going on with regard to the Breakneck Creek Regional Authority system,” Santoro said. “Some of that is they are looking at a private sale, and that is certainly within their control and their determination. But looking at that as well as rising costs or changes in cost, we are going to make a recommendation that we separate from this agreement, based on cost factors, but also based on the fact that we want to be in control of our own future here.”

“I agree that there is much risk involved if we continue this agreement, not knowing what is going on,” township supervisor John Skorupan said.

The original gravity flow upgrade project was the impetus for an eminent domain taking of a portion of land belonging to Adams Township landowner Frederick “Fritz” Bielo.

Bielo owns an 85-acre farm at the intersection of Myoma and Peters roads, and previously was contacted by the Breakneck authority and informed that Breakneck would use eminent domain to take a piece of his land measuring 1,200 feet by 50 feet, 20 feet for the permanent easement, in order to place the sewer line.

Now, there may not be any need to run that line through Bielo’s land, Santoro says.

“We will no longer need to run a gravity line through that property, from the township’s perspective,” Santoro said. “Ultimately, Breakneck will make the decision as to what they do with that process. We are going to work with them to do whatever it is that Breakneck is looking to do, but we are not looking to proceed forward anymore and put the line through that property.”

The future of the Breakneck Creek Regional Authority has been an oft-discussed topic in recent weeks at municipal meetings in Adams Township.

Township supervisors in Adams and Mars, the two founding municipalities for the Breakneck authority, signed a confidentiality agreement earlier in the year, the first paragraph of which refers to Penn American’s “interest in discussing the potential acquisition of the wastewater system assets of the Breakneck Creek Regional Authority by Pennsylvania American Water Company, using the Act 12 fair market value approach.”

Adams Township Supervisor Chairman Russ Ford has maintained that the ongoing evaluation of both the water and sewer authorities is to determine their value, and that there is not yet any sort of sale agreement or discussion.

At a recent Adams Township meeting, he said the idea for the evaluations was originally sparked by concerns over who would be liable if the water or sewer authorities “went belly up,” and reassured residents that any possible future discussions about a sale or about the results of the evaluations would be done with public input.

Instead of the gravity flow connection, Santoro explained, the township will now upgrade the existing lift station at Franklin Acres.

Santoro said the new plan will not impact sewage services in the township.

“It’s the same process,” he said. “Residents will see no difference. During that planning process, provisions are made for the sewer to continue. We’ll have some design here, and then we will go out to bid at some point in the future.”

The move to upgrade the lift station itself instead of using a gravity flow system is not expected to cause problems, he added.

“Sometimes best practice is to gravity flow. However, this has been an existing pump station that has been in place for 40-plus years, so it is really just a replacement in kind,” Santoro said. “They build pump stations all the time. We are building a new one on the other side of the township.”

At the Cranberry Township meeting Thursday the township supervisors can award the engineering design contract for the plan.

The previous design had already accumulated engineering expenses of about $100,000, Santoro said. Aside from those lost funds, the new plan is anticipated to cost a similar amount as the old one.

“The entire project will be about the same cost,” Santoro said. “When you consider everything that was involved in the gravity system, and the tap fee that we would have had to pay ... the construction costs will be more, in this case, but there is no tap fee.”

In total, the project is anticipated to cost about $1.2 million. Before any construction can begin, the township will go through several months of design, and send paperwork to the state Department of Environmental Protection for approval.

“It’s really a 2023 project, is really what I would expect,” Santoro said.