Richland Borough Council addresses water project delays

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

Richland Borough Council addressed ongoing delays with contractors on the Well No. 9 installation at its May 12 meeting.

Council members Robert Rittle and Shawn Watrous were absent.

Township engineer Casey Kerschner of HRG said radio antenna communication was expected to work in connecting Well No. 9 with the tank and reservoir; however, cellular connection may now be necessary. Kerschner said it will cost approximately $25,000 to install cellular communication.

“This is absolutely ridiculous. This was supposed to be online, I think originally it was October … and here we are all but mid-May, and we still don’t have Well No. 9 online because of this issue,” said president Kelly Bricker. “This has been an issue for quite some time, and now you guys are coming back and want us to pay $25,000.”

Keystone Engineering Group director of engineering Adam Menko said they have been troubleshooting this issue since January. “The computer model wasn’t as accurate as projected. We can get some connection between the radios, but not enough to pass data,” said Menko. “The radios can see each other, but they can’t connect enough to make a valid packet transmission.”

Radio was selected for the Richland water project in a 2022 evaluation by Keystone, Menko said. “Radio is something that you wholly own. There is no ongoing maintenance cost as cellular has,” noted Menko. 

Water committee chairman Matt Johnson suggested any additional engineering design costs not be charged to the borough if cellular is needed instead of radio.“You guys need to sharpen your pencils, and come back to us and make this fair one way or another,” said Johnson. “I think that would be fair – to say we will eat that cost, because let’s face it, I’m paying you to design something that did not work.”

Johnson and Bricker emphasized the urgency of the need for answers on what will work. Kerschner asked Keystone to provide any possibilities of how radio could still work or a cost breakdown for cellular at a borough council workshop meeting on May 27.

In conjunction with Well No. 9, Richland is in the process of having a new 500,000-gallon elevated water storage tank installed. 

In other business, council:

• Awarded the 2026 road repairs bid to Martin Paving for $90,876. Borough secretary Becky Schnope said repairs will include tar and chip for Walnut Street from Chestnut to North Race Street and milling and paving for Poplar Street from East Main Street to East Linden Street.
• Authorized submission of a Greenways, Trails, and Recreation Program grant application requesting $196,512 and a Schuylkill Highlands mini-grant application requesting $15,000. Any funds received from those requests would go toward phase two of the Dr. E.O. Moehlmann Field park project.
• Approved a Department of Environmental Protection planning public sewer exemption and conditionally approved a water design plan for the Richland Railroad Diner rebuilding project. According to a Facebook post by Richland Railroad Diner, May 29 will be their last day of operation before construction begins.
• Heard an update on request for PennDOT to evaluate the intersection of Chestnut and Elm streets and New Street due to safety concerns. The borough received an April 22 response stating PennDOT will conduct an evaluation within 60 days.
• Approved enactment of the Knox Box ordinance.
• Declined a request to finance No Nonsense Neutering vouchers for community use.

Richland Borough Council will meet again on Tuesday, June 9, at 7 p.m. in the borough building at 5 Pine St., Richland.