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The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority has asked 31 municipalities in its regional stormwater pollution reduction program to decide if Lehman Township should receive a special agreement to remain with the group.
Like the others, Lehman had signed up for the authority-run plan to comply with a federal mandate to reduce sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus in the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay. Compliance projects are funded by a stormwater fee on property owners based on the nonabsorbent impervious area within their parcels.
But Lehman is in a unique situation because it later obtained a state waiver saying the municipality doesn’t have to meet the mandate, at least not within the next five years.
Township officials asked the authority to work out a different payment arrangement to stay in the program in a non-mandatory category because they are concerned it would be too costly to bring the municipality into compliance on its own if the waiver is withdrawn in five years.
Under the proposed plan:
• The authority would refund stormwater fees that have been paid this year by township property owners. This amounts to approximately $84,600 in fees on 1,169 properties, according to an authority report through June 30. The owners of another 650 township properties had not paid their fees as of that date, it said.
• Instead of a stormwater fee, the municipality must pay a yearly contribution — the amount has not been set — to keep its spot in the regional program. The authority must receive this payment before property owner stormwater fee payments are refunded.
• Lehman also must satisfy outstanding financial obligations to the regional program, as determined by the authority, and help pay for professional services required to establish the new participation classification.
• If the township’s mandate waiver expires, it must agree to continue to be bound by the terms of its intergovernmental cooperation agreement with the authority and other municipal regional program participants.
In a letter delivered to the 31 municipalities, authority Executive Director James Tomaine said the authority believes the arrangement is “equitable and reasonable” because the regional program won’t have to spend money for the township to comply with the mandate.
The agreement also could avoid a potential legal battle for the township to get out of the intergovernmental agreement, officials have said.
Tomaine said it wouldn’t make sense to invest resources calculating the amount Lehman must pay under a new arrangement if other regional participants oppose the concept. He asked municipalities to contact him by Aug. 30 if they have any objections to the approach.
“Barring majority objection, we will proceed forward with the implementation of this classification system, and this matter will be resolved,” Tomaine wrote.
If a plan is finalized, the authority also would proportionately reallocate Lehman Township’s share of a stormwater municipal savings account to the 30 other municipalities, his letter said.
In addition to the regional projects, the authority is setting aside funding for each participating municipality to perform their own work related to the pollution reduction mandate, such as catch basin or stormwater pipe repairs. The credit for each municipality will be based on their percentage of impervious area and fee payments.
Lehman Township’s initial savings account allocation was projected around $29,300.
In comparison, Wilkes-Barre’s earmark was set around $139,449 because the city has the largest percentage of fee payments in the group.
Lehman officials had said they considered a waiver in fall 2017 but did not believe they would be successful falling within 5 miles of an impaired waterway. However, their application filed in February was approved by the state because they supplied new population analysis and research showing the portion of East Fork Harveys Creek that runs through the township is not impaired.
The mandate applies to municipalities requiring MS4 (municipal separate storm sewer system) permits because they have both urbanized areas determined by U.S. Census data and separate storm sewer systems that discharge directly into waterways without first being treated.
Overall, the authority has collected a total $5.47 million from fees on 64,792 properties, the latest report through June 30 says. Bills were issued on 76,750 properties, which means 84.4 percent have paid.
Tomaine’s letter also updated municipal officials on other mandate compliance work. Initial stormwater mapping has been completed in 17 municipalities to date. Street sweepers have sucked up more than 4.2 million pounds of debris in the one-year span from July 1, 2018 to May 31, 2019, and 23 catch basins have been repaired during that period, it said.