Nov 12, 2014 3 min read

CHARLEROI – An authority in Charleroi is faced with a huge bill to eliminate wastewater discharges into the Monongahela River to comply with a federal mandate requiring all municipalities to reduce pollution from such treatment plants.

The Municipal Authority of the Borough of Charleroi last week proposed to spend $66 million in a “worst case scenario” to greatly reduce overruns at its treatment plant that also serves Fallowfield Township, North Charleroi and Speers, said Ed Golanka, the authority’s general manager.

“We are directed to comply,” Golanka said. “This is going to be an ongoing issue for some time.”

The issue of diverting heavy flows away from wastewater treatment plants during heavy rains is one facing every community under a mandate from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do so by 2026, said John Poister, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection in Pittsburgh.

The DEP is willing to meet with Charleroi Borough officials and its authority to review the new, $66 million project proposal and find ways to lower its cost, Poister said.

Borough manager Donn Henderson said Charleroi spent nearly $10 million about 10 years ago to separate the town’s storm sewers from the treatment plant in an attempt to get an early start on meeting the EPA mandate. The authority, however, said it’s still measuring excessive flows from Charleroi.

Under the decade-old project, residential wastewater treatment and water customers of the authority are paying the borough $190 a year to address its debt. The authority plan would eliminate the $190 bill, and set the annual debt cost for the new project to nearly $600 a year for its residential customers in Charleroi, Henderson said.

Charleroi is an old town with aging infrastructure, Golanka said.

It’s difficult to know what is going on underground, said Henderson, who theorized springs could be infiltrating the sewers feeding the treatment plant.

The authority had a DEP-approved plan to meed the mandate by constructing a holding tank on CSX property, where excessive flows would be diverted when the treatment plant is at capacity, Poister said.

He said that plan fell through, even though the authority had already spent money on its design, and the DEP and authority need to find another location for the holding tank.

The authority is suggesting using a brownfield for the project, while the DEP has proposed building the tank at the site of the former high school football stadium.

The borough, meanwhile, this week proposed using the stadium property for a marina to attract economic development.