News

May 28, 2008

Separate sewage lines, panel told

PITTSTON TWP. – Thomas Lawson of the Borton-Lawson engineering and architectural firm wants downtown Wilkes-Barre not to smell.

“When you walk around downtown sometimes, you can’t stand it,” he said at a hearing Tuesday on water infrastructure.

The problem is the aging sewer lines under the city are “combined sewers,” meaning they collect both sewage and storm water. At times they release odorous sewer gases through storm drains and other outlets, particularly on hot days.

“It’s just offensive,” he said.

The hearing, held before the Gov. Ed Rendell-appointed Sustainable Water Infrastructure Task Force at the Pittston Convention Hall, included comments from an engineer, a contractor, the head of an environmental group and representatives of several sewage-treatment facilities in the region.

The take-home message for state Sen. Raphael Musto, D-Pittston Township, who chaired the hearing, was that combined sewers need to be separated. With increased paved land causing storm water to enter drains rather than soak into soil, treatment plants built decades ago are ill suited to handle the extra flow. As a result much of that excess storm water, mixed with sewage, is shot directly into the nearest waterway, causing water pollution.

The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority has begun rectifying the situation, having separated some sewer lines in Wilkes-Barre.

However, treatment facilities warn separating the systems, along with other upgrades aging plants require, will cause customer rates to skyrocket.

Christopher Carsia, operations director at the Greater Hazleton Joint Sewer Authority, said the authority recently borrowed $38 million in bonds. Because user rates were stable for 15 years, he said they now will double over a three-year period.

“I’ve heard the heat from the general public on that,” he said.

He wants to see planning and oversight for such infrastructure regionalized “to get the most bang for the dollar.”

The situation is quickly coming to a head, Lawson said, because urban centers “are going to be the place to live because of the cost of energy … but that’s where the infrastructure is poorest.”

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