The Dalton Sewer Authority is proceeding with a major infrastructure project to improve water service for customers that prompted a recent sewer rate hike.
The authority is accepting bids to construct a new plant, according to a legal notice published last week in The Times-Tribune. It replaces the current plant, which was built in 1988.
The work consists of building new pumping stations, blowers, a new building with copper filters and UV disinfection, and a 100,000-gallon surge tank. It also includes a new emergency generator, site grading and drainage improvements, piping, valves, electrical and heating and air conditioning work.
Authority board members voted earlier this month to increase yearly rates by $25 per equivalent dwelling unit per billing period for residential and commercial properties beginning in March. Rates are going up due to increased operational costs and in anticipation of debt service costs associated with a $4.3 million loan for the project from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority.
Residential customers currently pay $130 per equivalent dwelling unit per billing period, or $780 a year, while commercial customers pay $140 per equivalent dwelling unit per billing period. With the rate increase, residential customers will pay $155 per unit per billing period, or $930 a year, while commercial customers will pay $165 per unit per billing period. Customers are billed every two months.
The authority received $11.7 million from Pennvest — nearly $7.4 million in grant funding and the $4.3 million low-interest loan — to build the new treatment plant at its property on North Turnpike Road just outside the borough in La Plume Twp.
The project is also receiving federal Environmental Protection Agency financial assistance, according to the notice.
Mayor Harrison Wolff said as the plant gets older, repairs have become more expensive and those costs are passed on to the taxpayers.
“We’re at the point with it where the fixes that would require us to bring everything to a modern age will be more expensive than replacing it,” he said.
Wolff said the new plant will be beneficial, with less chance of service interruptions. He added the borough would pay back the loan in the event the authority defaulted, but he is confident the sewer authority will complete the project.
“Everything seems to be moving smoothly and I have all the faith in the world that this is going to be a good thing,” Wolff said.
He said he is grateful the authority received the grant for the project.
Once completed, the new plant will hold 140,000 gallons, the same as the current plant. It will be designed in line with current and future regulations for plants set by the state Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, authority Chairman David Beckish previously said.
The grant and loan will cover the cost of nearly the entire project, which he estimates to be between $11 million and $12 million. Service will continue during construction, and the existing plant will be deactivated and demolished when the new one is completed, he said earlier this month.
The authority serves a little more than 500 customers in Dalton, La Plume Twp. and Glenburn Twp., about 90% of which are residential customers.
The bids are due by March 26. Beckish anticipates construction will start in the spring or summer.
