Sewer, water authorities again topic at Adams meeting
ADAMS TWP — A packed room of upward of 80 residents attended a township meeting Monday to address the Adams Township board of supervisors and to express opposition to an ongoing evaluation and potential sale of the Municipal Water Authority of Adams Township and Breakneck Creek Regional Authority to Pennsylvania American Water Company.
Township supervisors in Adams and Mars, the two founding municipalities for the Breakneck authority, signed a confidentiality agreement earlier 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.”
Members of the Breakneck Creek Regional Authority and Municipal Water Authority of Adams Township boards were asked to sign the agreement, but some declined.
On Monday, more than a dozen residents — a number of whom had been alerted about the water and sewer authorities through a private Facebook group or through flyers and signs posted around the township — asked board members why they would consider selling the authorities, why the discussion was being held confidentially, when the supervisors’ elected terms would be up and when the confidentiality agreement would expire.
“I believe in openness and transparency, and I want to know what is going on,” said Mars resident Robert Koleno. “I trust the people I voted for will listen to my concerns and talk to me and my neighborhood about why you are making the decisions you are making. All of a sudden, I hear that you might sell the water authority and the sewer authority. It might be a great deal, but I have no clue what it’s all about. Why is there secrecy about it? That bothers me a whole lot.”
Township supervisors chair Russ Ford maintained that there is no sales agreement or dollar amount attached to either authority as of yet. At a July 12 meeting, Ford had said that the board had agreed to sign a confidentiality agreement that it would do an evaluation with Penn American for the water and sewer authorities to determine their worth.
Ford said at the Monday meeting that the discussions about evaluating the authorities originally had been sparked by concerns over who would be liable if the water or sewer authorities “went belly up.” He cited past concerns that the water authority in particular had had problems with oversight in regards to financial responsibility.
The evaluations of the authorities are not yet complete, Ford said. He clarified that the confidentiality agreement expires Friday and said the board does not plan to renew it.
“There is nothing, no decision that will ever be made to sell, to dissolve, or not to sell any of this without the public being involved,” Ford said. “We made it very clear in the last meeting that it would be public opinion. You can’t come in, we can’t come in, and say, well, it might be this or it might be this. Why don’t we wait until we have the information, we can sit down, there’s not speculation, and we can look at it?”
There is not a set timeline for when the evaluation will be finished, Ford said, but when it is finished, the board intends to make it public.
“We are going to get the evaluation, we are going to evaluate the evaluation, we are going to come up with our thoughts between us and Mars borough on what we think about the valuation, and then we are going to bring it to the public to lay out — not that this is what we are going to do, but (that) this is what it looks like, and this is what has been put in front of us, and here are potential options,” Ford said. “I can’t give you an exact timetable on that.”
Ford reiterated that he and the other supervisors also live in Adams Township and said that the Penn American evaluation is the first step in a larger evaluation process.
“I know everybody is kicking the can down the road thinking ‘you are ready to sell the water and sewage and watch everybody’s rates go up.’ But if your rates go up, mine go up. Don’t think we are not considering all of this. But we are not considering anything, the five of us. There has been nothing for us to discuss at this point,” he said. “We promise you, when we have information to provide, there will be a time and a place for everybody to be involved. This is not five of ours’s community, this is everybody’s community. We understand that.”
