Moorestown Water Plant Upgrade Project 7 Months Behind Schedule

MOORESTOWN, NJ — Work on the Kings Highway Water Treatment Plant is behind schedule with work on two more plants still waiting to begin.

Moorestown resident Michael Babcock raised the issue during Monday night’s council meeting at town hall. The plant, which is undergoing upgrades to eliminate contaminants found in the township’s water back in 2013, was scheduled to be back online in October, but there have been delays, Township Manager Tom Merchel confirmed during the meeting.

The contract calls for penalties for each day there is a delay in completing the project, which is being handled by Mount Holly-based Alaimo Group. Merchel said he put the contractor on notice back in December, but the township is not yet collecting any penalties for delayed work from the group.

Councilman Mike Locatell explained the township is looking into whether any of these delays are the fault of the contractor. If that proves to be the case, the township would then look to collect any penalties it feels the contractor might owe.

He also said it’s not unusual for contractors to encounter issues that lead to delays when trying to upgrade a building built in the 1800s for 2018 standards.

Delays have included the county not issuing the proper permits needed to close township streets to pursue the project, Locatell said. When work could begin, crews soon discovered things underground weren’t where they expected them to be, and other utilities had to be called in to help, delaying work even further.

More recently, workers discovered that the filtration process had to be altered to compensate for the pH levels. The pure pH level of water is 7, with anything below that considered to be too acidic. However, the process broke down faster when they tried to add water with a pH level higher than 6.8, so the township attempted to alter the contract to allow it to put the pH level in at the end.

Under new New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) rules, additional tests must be done whenever there’s a change in design for a project. The last of these tests was scheduled for Friday, and Locatell said the plant will be online by the end of April.

Following the completion of the Kings Highway Water Treatment Plant, work can begin on water treatment plants on Hartford Road and North Church Street. The township's goal is to have work complete at all three plants by the time its current contract with New Jersey American Water expires in 2020.

Moorestown buys water from New Jersey American Water to supplement its supply, but has had to purchase greater amounts of water from the company after wells were shut down at the North Church Street Water Plant twice and work began on temporary and permanent fixes to the township's water problems.

Babcock pointed out that the township continued to pay for water from New Jersey American Water in November and December of last year, the two months after the township was told the Kings Highway Water Treatment Plant would be operational, increasing the amount of money Moorestown spent on water in 2017.

The goal of the upgrades is to eliminate Trichloropropane 1,2,3 (TCP 1,2,3), Trichloroethylene (TCE) and other contaminants that have been found in the water since 2013.

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