Tri-County water authority announces plant improvements
FREDERICKTOWN – A water authority in Fredericktown plans to complete improvements to its system by late 2017 to meet the terms of an order from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The work at Tri-County Joint Municipal Authority is expected to cost $800,000 to ensure the system doesn’t exceed acceptable limits for its water containing the cancer-causing chemicals known as trihalomethanes, authority engineer Robert Horvat said.
It’s important for operators to carefully monitor the treatment process, and the failure to do so “seems to have contributed to the (past) operational exceedances,” Horvat said Monday at a public meeting on the work held in the East Bethlehem Township fire hall in Fredericktown.
The authority was fined $23,400 last year by the DEP for having missing records, illegal overflows into the Monongahela River, treatment problems and unaccounted-for water withdrawals. The authority responded by firing and replacing its office staff as it worked with the DEP on the consent order for a corrective action plan.
Horvat said the plant’s filters have been either rehabilitated or reconstructed under the terms of the order.
Other work needs to be performed on the reservoir and in Beallsville and Scenery Hill. All of the DEP permits have been issued for the projects, he said.
The cost of the improvements was not expected to increase water bills for the authority’s nearly 3,500 customers from Fredericktown to Scenery Hill, the authority has said.