Trappe's "Trusted Team" - Competence in Question

Last month, Lower Providence residents voiced opposition to the Lower Perkiomen Valley Regional Sewer Authority's (LPVRSA) plan to locate a section of a major sewer line near their homes.  People in the vicinity of Hoy Park were deeply disappointed when the authority's board of directors voted to move forward with their plans for the current location, known as Arcola 1C.

The Arcola 1C route on the Lower Providence side of the creek is clearly the optimal path for the middle interceptor.  Engineering analyses have determined that, due to very steep topography, it would cost at least $2 million more to construct the middle interceptor on the Upper Providence side of the creek than on the Lower Providence side, even taking into account the costs to recover American Indian artifacts on the Lower Providence side. These additional costs would, of course, be passed on to all of the LPVRSA’s customers, including those living in Trappe. Constructing the interceptor on the Upper Providence side would also mean that the LPVRSA would lose the additional capacity already provided by the existing interceptor.  This could require another sewer expansion project in the not too distant future, also at the expense of the LPVRSA’s customers.

Lower Providence and a small interest group of residents waged a coordinated political and media campaign on ever-shifting grounds in an attempt to box in the LPVRSA’s viable options under the presumption that nobody is paying attention to the inconsistencies in their arguments.

We have sewage and we need to get rid of it. We don’t want to dump our sewage in our back yards or into the Perkiomen Creek. Therefore we collect the sewage and clean it up at a central location in Oaks (PVRSA).  It costs more than dumping in our back yards, but as a community we join together for the common good. For central sewage processing we have a system of pipes to transport the sewage from sources to the processing facility.

I don’t know of anyone who wants a sewer line in their back yard. I get that, but we need to put the lines somewhere. As we don’t have unlimited capital or operating funds, gravity limits our choices. If all the NIMBYs (not in my back yard) were to prevail we would not have a viable collection system and everybody would lose.

Hard to believe we proceeded to build a plant, the upper pipe and the lower pipe and low and behold when we went to build the middle pipe we shifted into a redesign mode. This analysis paralysis was an insane waste of ratepayer dollars.

The Arcola 1C route through LP was the only reasonable approach, ever.  

The plan was approved by the board with four of the six members voting in favor. Lower Providence's Fred Walker and Trappe's Paul Edwards voted against the plan.

At this month’s Council meeting, LPVRSA gave a presentation with photographs dating back to the original sewer line digs.  Trusted Team’s Paul Edwards interrupted to read a prepared speech defending his decision to vote against the sensible Arcola IC proposal.  The speech was long and nonsensical and could be distilled down to these words: “I voted against it because I felt we needed more information.”

The media and legal circus over this issue came to lawsuits and has raged for months.  Every detail no matter how small was in the press for all of us to read.

Trappe Council President Fred Schuetz, leader of the Trusted Team faction, replaced Stu Strauss with Council Vice President Paul Edwards, making him the Vice Chair of LPVRSA despite his lack of time in serving and complete inexperience.  (Tenured members of LPVRSA openly expressed regret over losing Stu Strauss.)

The Vice Chair proclaimed he needed more information in order to vote sensibly.

The day after the vote results became public, as the Republican Committee Chair of Trappe, I received a tsunami of emails from colleagues in Upper Providence and Lower Providence asking, “Who is this Paul Edwards?”

Good question.  Embarrassing.

I truly hope voters connect the dots this Election and come out for Cathy Johnson, Pat Webster, Tammy Liberi and Nevin Scholl.  We are so fortunate to have these truly competent neighbors willing to serve.