Board considers sewer loan - Chadds Ford Live

The Chadds Ford Sewer Authority is looking to borrow $300,00 and needs the township to guarantee that loan. The matter was discussed during the Board of Supervisors work session on Jan. 22 and could be voted on in February.

Supervisors’ Chairman Timotha Trigg said the loan would be from the Delaware Valley Regional Finance Authority to replace the Woodland Pump Station.

“Originally planned for future replacement, this project has been expedited due to concern of equipment failure,” she said. “Using DVRFA financing, which offers favorable interest rates, requires the township’s guarantee.”

The board would have to pass an ordinance to guarantee the loan, Trigg added.

Supervisors’ Vice Chairman Kathleen Goodier, who is the supervisors’ liaison to the sewer authority, said she didn’t have many comments “other than we have a pump station that seems to be failing. Grants were not received to fix it. It’s not going to get batter on its own.”

Goodier added that she’s unaware of other options, but the township is well within its debt limit, and that the township would only be on the hook for the loan if the sewer authority defaulted.

“We need to be sure they’re not going to default, and I think they’ve answered a lot of questions. We have their audits, we have everything that we’ve asked them to provide,” Goodier said.

Trigg said she asked questions of the authority and was satisfied with the answers given, “So, I’m comfortable with it.”

Supervisor Samantha Reiner raised a question about how the authority is handling an I&I — inflow and infiltration — situation. She said the authority has budgeted $74,000 for emergency sludge hauling.

Trigg responded saying township engineer Mike Schneider has said the authority has done all the right things to handle I&I. She added that they need rain to figure out whether that situation is rectified, but that there hasn’t been enough rain to make that determination or to see how successful they’ve been in managing the situation.

“It’s very, very difficult to come up with any kind of an estimate when they haven’t gotten the rain necessary to evaluate whether what they’ve identified is the lion’s share of it or whether there’s still a big surprise out there. In Michael’s opinion, they’ve done a good job,” said Trigg.

Sewer Authority Chairman Mark Stookey called into the meeting via Zoom and said the authority is “committed to fixing the I&I. We’re in a process of doing it. As Mike Schneider said, we’re doing everything we know to do it. It’s a work in process (sic),” he said. “We’re committed to fixing this. It’s critical for the Sewer Authority. It’s our number one priority.”

He said part of the I&I problem is at Painters Crossing Condominiums, but the HOA is working on fixing things, but they’re not finished yet.

In a follow-up email exchange after the meeting, Stookey said the pump station on Woodland Drive needs to be replaced because “It is 23 years old, uses outmoded technology, and has reached the end of its useful life.”

He also addressed financial stability: “I would like to emphasize that the Sewer Authority is financially stable. We will repay the debt using revenue from our customers; no township funds will be required. We have borrowed using a township guarantee in the past, and there has never been any issue with servicing the debt.”

He added that lenders to an authority typically ask townships to guarantee the loan in what he referred to as a “belt and suspenders approach” to secure the loans. This particular loan, if approved, is a 20-year note.

Repaying the loan comes from tapping and user fees, Stookey said. Chadds Ford’s tapping fee — the cost to connect to the public sewer system — is $13,149, and the authority charges a quarterly user rate of $237 per EDU. (The authority calculates an EDU, or equivalent dwelling unit, as being 261 gallons of wastewater per day.) The authority has an estimated 100 EDUs available.

Other business

• North American Land Trust will go before the supervisors next month with the hope of getting approval to start work on a stream restoration project at the Brinton Run Preserve on Oakland Road. NALT owns the property but Chadds Ford Township holds the easement and must approve the project.

NALT President Steven Carter said the project has been on the books for about four years. The first part of the project is to drill about eight borings to see how water flows in and through the soil as baseline data before the actual restoration.

The intent is to restore aquatic resources, but supervisors say care needs to be taken because, as Reiner said during the meeting, “What you do on the land affects the water.” And that, she said, affects other properties downstream.

• Supervisors appointed Ernie Angelos as “conflict” solicitor. Angelos would represent the township if Mike Maddren, the township’s primary solicitor, had a conflict of interest. Goodier said the Angelos’ appointment had been accidentally left off the Jan. 6 reorganization agenda.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.