City of Lebanon Authority board hears request to treat Mount Gretna wastewater

This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.

Under the new business section on the City of Lebanon Authority’s board agenda Monday was an exploratory and currently hypothetical item: “request to accept Mount Gretna sewer customers.”

The request evolved from several conversations between CoLA and West Cornwall Township Municipal Authority (WCTMA), as reported to the board by CoLA executive director Tom Deitzler.

Deitzler said that in early January, WCTMA engineer Jeff Steckbeck asked if CoLA had the capacity to take 30,000 gallons per day of wastewater from residents in three Mount Gretna neighborhoods in West Cornwall Township (Mount Gretna Campmeeting, Mount Gretna Heights, and Stoberdale).

Currently, those neighborhoods’ wastewater is treated by the Mount Gretna Authority (MGA), which also treats wastewater from Mount Gretna Borough and three South Londonderry Township neighborhoods.

Deitzler’s answer: “We have adequate capacity. It shouldn’t be an issue.”

However, the request evolved to 80,000 gallons per day after Steckbeck contacted the state Department of Environment Protection to discuss sending the wastewater to CoLA. DEP told Steckbeck that as much as it promotes regionalization of public services, it couldn’t support the transfer of about half of the MGA’s sewer base, Deitzler said.

“So, Jeff said he proposed hypothetically to DEP, what if CoLA took over all of MGA’s customers, and DEP said, ‘yes,’” Deitzler told the board.

“This was initiated because MGA’s rates keep going up and up, and WCTMA knows they could send to us for a less costly quarterly bill,” said Jon Beers, general consultant to the authority.

How much less would need to be determined by a rate study although savings are likely given CoLA’s economies of scale. Additionally, CoLA would bill on gallonage used rather than on EDUs, which is how the borough authority calculates its quarterly charges.

Some upfront costs – like CoLA’s $2,090 tapping fee/EDU – also would need to be factored in. Another cost: a pump station at Mount Gretna Authority might have to be built, too.

The board took no action in the absence of an official request, although members did signal being open to the idea should it progress.

But, as Deitzler said, “It’s all hypothetical at this point.”

The board also discussed the proposed Cornwall-West Cornwall water system interconnection agreement in an executive session. When the board reconvened, it directed Fred Long, assistant solicitor, to “send a confidential letter to the solicitors of Cornwall Borough and West Cornwall Township Municipal Authority, conveying CoLA’s concerns with the interconnect,” Deitzer wrote in an email.

The proposed interconnect would allow Cornwall and West Cornwall to provide water to each other in case of emergencies such as pump failures and contamination of water supply. CoLA supplies water to Cornwall while the West Cornwall authority has its own water supply and distribution system.

At its November meeting, CoLA staff raised concerns about the potential effects of mixing its surface water characterized by high pH and low alkalinity with WCTMA’s well water which has low pH and high alkalinity.

Deitzler reported to the board that the cold weather, snow and ice caused nine water main breaks in January and four so far in February. All but two involved Lebanon city pipes.

The weather also delayed CoLA’s project to install new MXU units that enable use of radio signals to read water usage. Of the 3,600 units that need to be replaced, about 1,000 have been updated, Deitzler said.

Crews continue to update CoLA’s inventory of service lines of unknown material, Deitzler said. Service lines from the main to the curb stop—what CoLA calls ‘public side’ because the authority is responsible for them—number 2,269 while those on the private side—namely, from the curb stop to inside the property—number 8,076.

The board was introduced to two new directors – Sheri Herr, accounting and billing director, and Lisa Felty, IT and technical services director. Both are long-time CoLA employees.

In other business, the board approved:

• Three construction invoices for the wastewater treatment plant improvement project to:
  • Pact Two LLC, general contractor, $434,606.25.
  • Garden Spot Mechanical, HVAC, $12,268.18.
  • Garden Spot Electric, electrical, $27,071.48.
• Sale of water capacity to North Cornwall Commons Apartments, North, 108 Blackford Blvd., $244,300;
• Sale of sewer capacity to Cornwall Borough for PRL Industries, 435 Boyd St., $18,810, and to North Lebanon Township, 1001 E. Maple St., $2090.

The City of Lebanon Authority Board meets at 2311 Ridgeview Road, Lebanon, on the second Monday of each month at 3 p.m. The next meeting will be Monday, March 9. These meetings are open to the public and do not require registration.