Delmont officials headed to court over eminent-domain request for sewage project
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A Westmoreland County judge has ordered an evidentiary hearing as Delmont officials continue trying to condemn land in neighboring Salem Township, where they are planning a multi-million-dollar sewage project over the objections of the property owners.
Delmont is invoking eminent domain in order to obtain a permanent easement on Salem Township land owned by the Rock Springs Trust.
In order to start the process, Delmont officials had to enter into an agreement with Salem Township in June 2020. However, attorneys for the trust claim the taking of land began well before the agreement was signed.
The borough is a party to two consent agreements with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. One is part of a larger agreement with all of the Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority’s client communities, to identify and eliminate storm water flowing into or otherwise infiltrating the sewage system.
The other is to correct the decades-long issue of sewage overflows in the borough. Those overflows largely have been concentrated on the Rock Springs Trust property, where both a gravity line and force main are located and manholes occasionally belch raw, untreated sewage onto the trust’s land off Rock Springs Road.
During significant wet weather, manholes have discharged a mix of stormwater and untreated sewage into a tributary of Beaver Run, also located on the property. The lines have required multiple repairs over the years, and storm water runoff has relocated portions of the stream, exposing several sections of line.
As a remedy, Delmont officials proposed a $4.85 million project to relocate and replace the gravity line and force main, as well as potentially build a 325,000-gallon equalization tank to hold excess flow and drain it more slowly.
The borough has secured a $311,000 grant from the state’s Small Water and Sewer Program that will be put toward the relocation of the sanitary sewer line.
Tara Horvath, attorney for the Rock Springs Trust headed by Salem resident Ed Rebitch, whose family lives on the trust property, said the borough’s action goes beyond the scope of eminent domain “because it authorizes Delmont to condemn for past projects which occurred before it had authorization to condemn and allows condemnation for future speculative projects which may or may not be for a valid public purpose or within the legislative grant of eminent domain authority to which Delmont is limited.”
Horvath alleged that over the years, Delmont “intentionally and repeatedly flooded and discharged sewage on the (trust) property,” and said the consent order acknowledges some, but not all, of the 36 raw-sewage discharges trust officials say took place between 2016 and 2019.
Horvath also cited a 2001 case in arguing that state law does not permit Salem to delegate eminent domain authority to Delmont. Delmont solicitor Dan Hewitt wrote in his response that state law prohibits the transfer of eminent domain power to a private individual, rather than another government entity.
Hewitt said the borough does not comment on pending litigation.
In court filings, both sides also have disagreed about the amount of land necessary for the projects, when the borough began taking land and the way in which trust officials have challenged the condemnation.
With the preliminary objections raising issues of fact related to both the declaration of taking and the alleged de-facto taking of land, Westmoreland Court of Common Pleas Judge Christian Scherer ordered an evidentiary hearing at 9 a.m., March 30, at the county courthouse, 2 North Main Street in Greensburg.