Freeport Council to discuss floating $8.5 million bond to finance new sewage treatment plant

Freeport needs a new sewage treatment plant and up to $8.5 million to close a funding gap to pay for it.

On Monday night, borough council will consider an ordinance that states how a bond will be funded.

“What has to happen is that it has to go to the S&P (Standard and Poor’s 500) rating service to rate our bond, and, depending on the rating, it will determine our interest rate,” council President Clint Warnick said.

An $11 million PennVEST grant will pay for most of Freeport’s new sewage treatment plant.

With the congressional passage of the 2023 federal spending bill, Freeport secured another $1.5 million for the project to help pay for the plant, which is estimated to cost $16.9 million.

“Phase one was already done. That involved drawing up the blueprints for the plans, and it actually went out for bidding already and we approved the bid during the February council meeting,” Freeport Mayor Zachary Gent said.

He said a new sewage treatment plant is needed because the current plant is almost beyond repair.

“It’s over 50 years old,” Gent said. “The floodplain requirements for sewage treatment plants have changed. They have to be built at a higher elevation than they used to be.”

A new sewage treatment plant makes Freeport environmentally compliant and gives the borough a plant that can be properly maintained, Gent said.

“Right now, if certain things go wrong, there’s a chance that it couldn’t be fixed.”

Gent said the $8.5 million figure was arrived at because of increased costs.

“When this project started, nobody anticipated covid, nobody anticipated the extreme rise of inflation, nobody expected the cost of goods to go up,” Gent said. “You have to also budget funds to cover any kind of work that might arise from the construction.

“We’re a small borough so we don’t have the tax revenue that some of our surrounding neighbors have. The number one goal of this whole thing is to get this sewage plant done at the very lowest financial impact that could affect our residents.”

For his part, Warnick said this is unexplored territory for Freeport.

“This is the first time the borough has floated a bond that I’m aware of,” he said. “It’s not something that we’re expecting to do anytime in the future.”