Mar 6, 2013 3 min read

An attorney and his wife have filed a class-action suit against the Mon Valley Sewage Authority, its board members and the mayor and council members of Monessen over the rezoning of land intended for a treatment facility, claiming that if the project doesn’t proceed as planned, it will add an estimated cost of $10 million to authority customers’ collective bills.

Thomas B. Kostolansky and his wife, Patricia, who are residents of Donora and where he is a councilman, filed suit this week in Washington County Court against the authority, which has offices in Carroll Township. It collects storm water and treats sewage for about 2,000 customers from Donora and parts of Carroll before discharging it into the Monongahela River. The authority also has about 3,500 customers in Monessen, Westmoreland County, Kostolansky said.

The Kostolanskys do not seek money damages, but they want the court to “insure that members of (the) class do no pay additional charges to their sewage bills as a result of the actions” taken by Monessen.

The background of the case dates to 1991, when the sewage authority initiated its combined sewer overflow and long-term control plan, which called for the construction of a satellite sewage treatment plant, known as the Seneca Street facility in Monessen.

Officials of Monessen gave the OK to the sewage authority to design and build the sewage treatment plant, making no objections and participating in a series of meetings and conferences with the authority dating to 2007, the Kostolanskys claim.

But in August of last year, Monessen amended its ordinance, rezoning the land on which the Seneca Street facility was to be constructed, prohibiting its use as a sewage treatment plant.

Monessen then refused to issue a building permit to the sewage authority. The Kostolanskys said in their suit that this obstruction has caused the sewage authority to incur legal fees and costs, and that if the ordinance is upheld in litigation, the authority will have to pay “substantial increased professional fees and costs in … additional engineering and accounting services, construction and the like.”

The attorney and Donora councilman said he did not know about the actions in Monessen until Feb. 7, when members of the Mon Valley Sewage Authority requested to meet with Donora Borough Council.

“This is the first I became aware that this whole project of the sewage authority had hit a legal snag,” Kostolansky said.

Kostolansky said he expects the costs of the project will double if the treatment plant isn’t built on Seneca Street as had been planned. The Kostolanskys asked that Monessen pay for these costs and fees because it refused to grant a building permit for the Seneca Street treatment plant.

Monessen City Administrator John Harhai responded briefly to an inquiry for comment on the suit. “This is the first that I am hearing about this issue,” he wrote.

The Kostolanskys also asked the court to direct the sewage authority to amend its by-laws to increase the number of board members to seven, with an additional appointment made by Donora and another by a majority vote of board members.

Named as defendants along with the sewage authority are its board members, J. Tony Menendez, Ronald Barran, Paul Berardelli and Dennis Wince, and the City of Monessen, including Mayor Mary Jo Smith and council members Lucille D’Alfonso, Martin M. Dudas, Jonmichael Retos and William Manus.

The sewage authority has five board members, two appointed by Donora Borough Council and three appointed by Monessen City Council.