SPRINGDALE — Borough officials hope to save money updating the water plant by testing a six-week pilot water treatment program.
It's estimated to cost about $800,000 to $1 million to update the water plant. It has two large, deteriorating filters that officials say are in dire need of replacement.
“It's almost an emergency at this point,” Councilman John Molnar said.
However, the borough hopes to spend about half of that with a pilot program using a new “Roberts System” that's smaller, touts itself as more efficient and designed to save municipalities money.
The material in the filters has worn away to the point that water has to be filtered several times before it's clean enough to distribute.
“It takes time and money,” Molnar said.
Borough officials said they'll receive the new filtration system next week and should have it up and running the following week.
After it's installed, the borough will pay about $15,000 to use it and monitor it for six weeks.
If the state Department of Environmental Protection approves the Roberts filtration system, it will cost the borough about $400,000 to $500,000 to implement it permanently.
Molnar said there are several grants the borough plans to pursue to pay for the new filter. If not, it will have to be funded through a state PennVEST loan, which the borough will pay back over about 20 years.
“Hopefully there's some (grant) funding that we'll be fortunate enough to receive,” Molnar said.
The filtration system is expected to cut down on such costs as utilities, and chlorine and salt used in purification. Borough officials estimate that it could save Springdale up to $30,000 per year.
It will ensure that water plant employees will no longer have to crawl inside the filters to clean them. “Sending people inside those tanks ain't safe,” Council President David Finley said.
Sarah Kovash is a freelance writer for Trib Total Media. Comments regarding this story may be sent to 724-226-4666 or vndcity@tribweb.com.
