SUMMIT TWP — Pennsylvania American Water plans to file for permits later this month to extend a water line from Hinchberger Road to Summit Township Elementary School.

The water company has not finalized a route for the new lines and is still doing surveying and engineering work, spokesman Gary Lobaugh said.

Houses and businesses along the route will be required to tap-in at their own expense, per township ordinance.

The Butler School Board, at its meeting March 20, voted to send a letter of commitment to Pennsylvania American affirming that the district would spend the money to connect the elementary school to the public water source.

School officials had reported that a tentative plan called for the line on Hinchberger Road to be extended to Herman Road and north on Bonniebrook Road to the intersection with Brinker Road. The school is located on Brinker Road near that intersection.

The school has been out of use since January, while officials have been working to address the high levels of lead and copper in the school’s water. The 260 kindergarten through fourth grade students have been using the vacant Broad Street school for the past several months.

District officials, township supervisors and state legislators have been involved in preliminary discussions.

The water company is doing everything it can to get permits in place this spring so it can have construction done by the end of the summer, Lobaugh said.

“We have been encouraged by the enthusiasm and support that his project has received within local and state government and we know that all our partners will be working to get the water supply there for the start of the school year,” he said.

The 2017-18 school year is set to start Aug. 30.

Pennsylvania American Water operations supervisor Jack Gentile said that the construction likely will include booster pumps to ensure that there is enough water pressure for the new customers.

Though the school is the priority, the other properties along the new lines will be able to hook up as soon as construction is done, Gentile said.

“Once the main is available for service, all residents that are ready can hook up,” he said.

The schedule for construction will be announced later, though the project will involve reducing some stretches of road to one lane of traffic.

The township’s ordinance dealing with public water service states that any property within 150 feet of a water line must connect to that line within 60 days of being notified.

The township has had a water tap-in ordinance since the 1970s when service was extended along Route 68 to get public water to the Lick Hill area, supervisor Chairman Willie Adams said.

Lick Hill was experiencing a crisis during that time when some residents did not have any water and the state Department of Environmental Protection had to step in to address sewage issues.

Property owners do not pay a tap-in fee to the township or the water company, though they are responsible for footing the cost of installing plumbing on their property to connect to the line.

This is not the first time that extending water service to that area has been proposed.

Township officials say they had been having discussions with Pennsylvania American in recent years to extend service from the intersection of Freeport Road and Hinchberger Road to Herman, an unincorporated community surrounding the intersection of Bonniebrook and Herman roads that includes residences, small businesses, the Herman fire hall, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Summit Academy and the township municipal building.

Township officials said they expect a mixed reaction from the affected residents.

Supervisor Larry Osche said he has heard from residents who are unhappy with their well water, which in some cases is tinted red from rust.

“I have people coming to me, residents tell me they’ll take it in a second,” he said.

Other residents are likely to be unhappy at being told they must spend money to connect.

“I think it would be a positive thing for the township, but not all the residents would like it,” Adams said.

A public water connection is said to increase property values and even though wells don’t have monthly bills, they aren’t guaranteed to work properly forever, he said.

“Public water is a constant supply. Whenever you have a well and something goes wrong, you could be without water until it is fixed,” he said.

Though school officials touted a public water connection as the best-case scenario to solve their crisis, the board still will consider replacing some of the plumbing fixtures inside the school.

Acting superintendent William Pettigrew said this week that architects from Stantech have made site visits at the school and are working on designs for a water line tap-in and Gannett-Fleming is still working on recommendations for repairs in the building.

The school has mostly copper piping and lead soldering, which was outlawed by the federal government in 1986. At a meeting in February, Gannett-Fleming operations specialist Eric Buzza reported that the well water had gotten more acidic over time, which was causing the solder to dissolve into the water.

Lead solder doesn’t typically dissolve in buildings connected to public water, because the water company carefully controls the pH level, he said.