Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority plans 8% rate hike
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Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority customers are preparing for an 8% rate hike announced recently.
The rate hike is part of FTMSA’s plan for addressing a consent order with the state Department of Environmental Protection, aimed at eliminating sewer system overflows. The authority has borrowed $20 million throughmunicipal bonds to help fund the steps necessary to comply with the order.
Several of the order’s benchmarks have already been met, including:
• Evaluating all sewage facilities throughout FTMSA’s service area
• Inspecting nearly 4,500 manholes
• Eliminating the Bel-Aire pump station
• Installing both temporary and permanent flow meters to monitor real-time flow conditions in the system.
• Installing two new generators at the main pump station and sewage treatment plant on Meadowbrook Road.
Western Murrysville and the Route 22 corridor make up the majority of FTMSA’s service area, along with Delmont, Export and small sections of Penn Township and Monroeville.
The current rate for Murrysville residents is $48.59 without a garbage disposal charge, and $50.80 with one. The new rate will be $55 for Murrysville customers, and the garbage disposal fee is being eliminated from bills.
Other customers outside Murrysville will see a similar 8% increase, which FTMSA officials said they are still calculating. The rate increase goes into effect in August.
Pending projects include upgrades to additional pump stations, the completion of smoke testing across FTSMA’s service area, and the continued correction of all defects found within the system.
Issues in Delmont
In Delmont, borough officials are also operating under a second consent order with the DEP. They are working to eliminate inflow and infiltration of stormwater into the sewage system, which causes downstream manholes to discharge a mixture of stormwater and raw sewage onto a Salem Township property.
FTMSA officials sent a letter to Delmont earlier this spring accusing the borough of failing to maintain its system per the 1983 agreement between the two entities.
FTMSA solicitor Wes Long said the flow meters that were installed “indicate a substantial increase in the amount of flow emanating from Delmont’s sewer system into FTMSA’s sewer system during wet weather events.”
“This data unequivocally demonstrates that Delmont’s sewer system is defective and that Delmont has failed to operate and maintain its sewer system in a state of good repair, both of which are in violation of the agreement,” Long wrote in a letter sent to Delmont officials.
Long said FTMSA will be withholding all reimbursements to the borough until Delmont officials can demonstrate that they have addressed issues with its system.
Delmont officials have proposed a $4.85 million project to relocate and replace a gravity line and force main, as well as to build a 325,000-gallon equalization tank to hold excess flow and drain it more slowly.
For FTMSA manager Nicholas Kerr, the issue is not what to do with stormwater getting into the system, but rather the fact that it is essentially clean water which does not need to be treated, and it is being piped to FTMSA’s treatment plant anyway.
“Our agreement specifies what is allowable and not allowable in terms of discharge,” Kerr said. “And the introduction of stormwater into the system is not allowable. By creating an equalization tank, this water will be retained and sent to FTMSA instead of escaping. And we don’t know how much water that is, or what kind of burden that will place on our system to treat.”
Borough officials want to invoke eminent domain in taking a section of the Rock Springs Trust property in Salem, where the sewage overflows occur and where the force main, gravity line and equalization tank project would occur.
Trust members have challenged the taking, and an evidentiary hearing is set for next month in the county’s Court of Common Pleas.