Middletown Residents Slam Newtown's Plans For Wastewater Plant

MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP, PA — A proposal to locate a wastewater treatment plant along Newtown Township's southern border with Middletown Township is not sitting well with nearby neighbors in Middletown.

The residents, mostly from the Swan Pointe development, jammed into the township's meeting room to urge the supervisors to take action to prevent a plant from being built within a half mile to a mile of their homes. They raised concerns over impacts on the air, property values, health and quality of life.

At the invitation of the supervisors, representatives from the Newtown, Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority attended the meeting to brief township officials on where they are at in the process and why they are investigating building their own plant.

"As representatives of the Newtown Sewer Authority we have a fiduciary responsibility to protect our ratepayers. We take that very seriously," said the authority's vice chairman Jerry Schenkman, who said a preliminary look at the numbers show that owning and operating its own plant would stave off major future rate hikes which they see coming down the pike if they remain a wholesale customer with the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority.

In August, the authority condemned 17 acres of land along Lower Silver Lake Road not far from where the new Wawa is being built as a potential location for the plant. The authority purchased the land for $9 million, a decision that was reported by Newtown Patch when it happened.

The sewer facility in Wolcott, Kansas City. The Newtown, Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority is investigating building a similar treatment facility here. If the project moves forward, the authority has pledged to utilize architecture that complements the surrounding area. (Newtown, Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority)

The authority, which serves about 9,000 customers in Newtown Borough and Newtown Township, maintains 103 miles of sewer mains and five pump stations. Its flows are conveyed to Bucks County through the Neshaminy Interceptor which collects flows from 13 Bucks County municipalities and directs them to Philadelphia for treatment.

The future costs of repairing and maintaining the Neshaminy Interceptor along with the costs imposed by Philadelphia for conveyance and treatment are expected to run in the millions of dollars in the coming decades, costs which will be funneled back to the ratepayers.

"We're very concerned about the impact of not doing anything," said Schenkman. "If nothing is done we will be at the hands of the county authority and the Philadelphia Waterworks. We're doing a very extensive investigation and doing our due diligence ... We're studying it. Our idea is to protect the residents of Newtown from the possibility of economic catastrophe by staying with the county and Philadelphia. But we're open to ideas. And if we determine it's not practical to do it, not healthy to do it we won't do it."

The authority's engineer, Terry Funk of Gannett Fleming, said members of the authority traveled to Wolcott, Kansas City, to visit a treatment plant similar to the kind they'd like to build here. That plant uses advanced Aqua Nereda technology, which would be used here to treat up to 2.5 million gallons per day.

"We wanted to see it, smell it, hear it and see how it operates," said Funk. "When you think about wastewater treatment plants, all you think about is odor. It's the reason why we went to Wolcott to stand there and smell it for ourselves. I can tell you that inside there was an odor. If you stood outside the door to that building you couldn't smell anything. All of the odor was inside."

According to Funk, if the plant is built the authority is committed to maintaining a natural buffer at the site, to architecture that complements the surrounding area and to meeting and exceeding regulatory standards.

This shows the proposed location of the treatment plant. The black line is the border between Middletown and Newtown townships.

After listening to the presentation, longtime Swan Pointe resident Gary Sondermeyer, who spent 45 years as an environmental professional and alerted many of this neighbors to the meeting, disagreed with the authority on one key issue: The plant is going to stink, he said.

"I have been to many wastewater treatment plants and I haven't been to one that doesn't stink," he said. "The real question is how often do they stink, how badly do they stink and how widely the dispersion of the odors go. I don't question these folks who went out to Kansas and didn't smell anything. A day means absolutely nothing. These things run 24/7, 365 days a year and this thing could be in our backyard for the next 30 to 40 years. It's going to stink along the way," he warned.

Sondermeyer said a sewer plant also threatens one of Bucks County's jewels - Core Creek Park. "The threat of a sewer plant to something that is so valuable to the outdoor recreation and quality of life of our area is a great concern," he said. "Loss of property value. Who wants to buy a home near a sewer plant. It's going to affect all of our property values."

Mike Ksiazek, the chairman of the board of supervisors, asked the authority, "Why here?"

"There really aren't parcels the size needed" elsewhere in the township, said Funk. "It's also a matter of typography. It's all elevation based. You also have to be close to the streams to construct and discharge a treatment plant. It's not because it's on the border of Middletown."

Responding to Sondemeyer's comments about odor, Funk noted, "We can't compare 60 or 100 year old treatment plants in cities to a brand new, state-of-the-art treatment plant."

Swan Pointe resident Peter Jordan responded, "Fortunately what they are looking at is state-of-the-art, but state-of-the-art doesn't mean odor free ... Yes, there are very good technologies to remove hydrogen sulfide. And there are good containment and control devices. But they fail," he said. "They are affected by human error, mechanical failure and the like ... (Sewer gas) exists. It's out there and it's going to stink. That's the way it works."

After listening to residents, Ksiazek said the supervisors "recognize and acknowledge that everyone in this room is here because they are opposed to this project. We get it. We've heard from you prior to tonight and we heard from you tonight. We have heard your concerns. We share your concerns. And this board is committed to working with our legal counsel, our township engineer and our professionals to figure out what our options are to move forward to best protect the residents of our township."

He added, "What that looks like and what that outcome is, I can't answer that right now. I can only tell you that this is the beginning of the process of us learning more, getting more information and seeing what our options are as a neighboring municipality."

Ksiazek also thanked the authority members for attending the meeting. "You came here in what was certain to be adversity and you didn't shy away from the criticism. You took questions and answered questions and I commend you for that," he said. "I hope you will keep the dialogue open with Middletown and work with us as we have questions and concerns."