Published: April 20, 2009 11:20 pm      

3 municipalities receive nearly $12M for sewer repairs

Nearly $12 million is flowing into the area for state-mandated sewage repairs designed to help alleviate pollution.

Cresson, Dale and Meyersdale boroughs received grants and low-interest loans through PENNVEST, an agency that funds infrastructure projects.

The much-needed money is expected to greatly decrease the financial burden on taxpayers in all three communities.

“This is great news – it really is,” said Jerry Held, Dale Borough Council president.

Dale Borough, like all municipalities in the Johnstown Regional Sewage system, has been ordered by state regulators to address a pervasive problem: Water infiltrates and overloads sewage lines, causing the illegal overflow of untreated waste.

But Dale is facing a much bigger project than most other communities because it has an outdated “combined” system – meaning one network of pipes handles both surface water and sewage.

So borough officials have been forced to undertake construction of a new sewage system, a project with a price tag that has ballooned to an estimated $7 million, Held said.

Residents’ sewage rates already have been raised. But the PENNVEST money will help ease sticker shock, especially since most of the borough’s $5.96 million allocation comes in the form of a grant.

“It’s going to help our residents quite a bit,” Held said.

Officials in Meyersdale were singing a similar tune Monday.

Borough officials will use their $2.4 million loan to remove nearly 2,000 tons of sludge from their lagoon treatment plant and rehabilitate or replace more than a mile of sewage lines.

The project will help alleviate overflows into the Casselman River and Flaugherty Creek.

Without PENNVEST funding, officials would have had to borrow the money from a bank at a higher interest rate, council President Bud Edmunds said.

“There aren’t many options,” he said. “The effect would have been to raise sewer rates even higher than we already have to.”

In Cresson Borough, the municipal authority landed a $1.3 million loan and a $2.3 million grant.

That will go toward replacement of more than three miles of pipe, which will curb sewage overflows into the Little Conemaugh River.

In a separate project that will require additional funding, officials also are planning to upgrade their sewage-treatment plant, said Rich Wray of Hegemann & Wray Consulting Engineers, the authority’s engineering firm.

“We’re very thankful that this money came through,” Wray said.