VALLEY VIEW - There are new developments in the Act 537 plan for Hegins and Hubley townships that warranted a special meeting this month.
A new location for the sewage treatment plant has been located and, according to Hegins Township supervisors, the site is favorable. This discovery will be discussed at 7 p.m. Jan. 25 at the Hegins Township Building on Gap Street.
The location is to the west and is located near the Schuylkill/Dauphin County line in Hubley Township. The land is currently owned by Quaker State and, according to the supervisors, the company is in favor of selling the land for the project.
The Act 537 plan was scheduled to be signed and forwarded to the Department of Environmental Protection at the Jan. 3 meeting of the Hegins Township supervisors, however, they decided to table the issue until the new site of the treatment plant could be discussed and possibly chosen.
"The people want to know what's going on with this Act 537 plan," said Hegins Township Supervisor Chad Richards. "We had a paper to sign to get the Act 537 plan approved, but in the meantime there's another site that would save the township a lot of money. Kenneth Richter, a member of the Hegins-Hubley Water Authority Board, did a lot of work on finding the site. This new site could save the township $700,000. We need to have a public meeting between ourselves and Hubley Township supervisors to discuss the new location further."
Hegins Township's engineering firm has already visited the new site and found it to be satisfactory.
"This would save customers a lot of money and the site would suit everyone," Richter said. "The land isn't in preservation so it's a win-win situation for everyone."
According to the supervisors, it's believed the new site would be able to pick up more customers and possibly industry, as well.
Hegins Township resident Kris Wetzel told the supervisors that on Dec. 30 he and several others gathered more than 200 signatures to say that Alternative 7, the land owned by Frank Krammes, was not suitable and that they felt Alternative 2 was overlooked.
"This may be a moot point now since a new site has been found," Wetzel said. "I believe cheaper options were overlooked in the original plan and there are many inconsistencies between the engineer's presentation and what's actually in the plan. Either the engineers didn't have an updated copy of the plan or they never read it themselves or they weren't talking the truth. If a new site was found that will suit everybody that's good."
Supervisor Lyle Clark said this new site could be estimated even less than any of the others. He said it's promising and the landowner is willing to sell. Also with this site, more units would lower the cost.
William Wolfgang, Hegins, said the township should do their own sewer project and forget about Hubley.
"There's not enough people in Hubley to pay for the project," Wolfgang said. "It's just not feasible for Hegins Township to do the project with them."
Supervisor Richards tried to explain when doing a joint project, 100 percent financing is available at a low rate, where if Hegins Township does the project alone only so much funding would be available and some of the project would have to financed at interest rates that could be as high as 16 to 17 percent.
"Hegins Township has thousands of dollars invested in this project already," Clark said. "This is taxpayer money and we need to get the show on the road and get a solution to this problem. This project and the costs incurred from the flood hit our budget hard and we needed the millage increase to cover the cost. We spent lots of money on this project and need to get it going."
Matthew Schwartz, who had the crowd cheering at the last public hearing concerning the sewer, told the supervisors they need to consider the longevity of the system. He's happy they are seeking a site in Hubley Township because it costs too much money to pump it back up to Hegins Township.
"I don't care who's land it might be on, it's the longevity that matters," Schwartz said. "Everything keeps going up, electricity and man power, etc. If it's a gravity fed system we will all be much better off. There will be nothing mechanical to fail."
"I believe the reason we had agreed on Alternative 7 was because at the time we were going to do a joint venture between sewage and Rausch Creek," Richards said. "We thought we would be able to get funding for that and save lots of money, but once we looked into the water treatment facility, they were nowhere near ready to move forward and we decided to start looking somewhere else."