Hearing slated March 27 on sewer pipeline’s route
New pipe will run along township open space
A public hearing will be held later this month that will give Upper Gwynedd residents an update on a project to divert the township’s wastewater flow to its own sewer plant.
“This relates to the sewer line corridor that we’re going to be using for the diversion project, that will run from Valley Forge Road across the township to our sewage treatment plant on the east side of the township,” said township Manager Len Perrone.
For the past two years, Upper Gwynedd and Towamencin have negotiated a formal separation of the two townships from what had been a shared sewer treatment plant near Kriebel Road, that is located in Towamencin and had served sewage flow from both municipalities. Upper Gwynedd’s board has decided to stop sending sewage flow to that plant and instead divert the flow to Upper Gwynedd’s own plant near Township Line Road, and has said the next several years will be spent surveying, designing, then bidding and building the necessary infrastructure to do so.
As that diversion project has taken shape, Perrone said, township staff and consultants have worked to identify locations for pumping stations and diversion lines that will redirect that sewage flow. The route that has been identified so far touches on township-owned open space, according to Perrone, thus the requirement to schedule a public hearing.
“There’s already an existing pipeline in this corridor, but we have to have the hearing” to notify the public of the new line, he said.
Upper Gwynedd’s board voted unanimously Monday to approve the advertisement of that hearing, which will take place March 27 at the start of the commissioners’ workshop meeting at 7:30 p.m.
Another action item related to the diversion project was also approved, authorizing staff to secure an updated floodplain map revision on a property on Valley Forge road where the pipeline will run.
“Floodplain delineations are not always exactly perfect, and because we’re going to be building a pump station in that area for the sewer diversion, we would like to identify the precise location of the floodplain line,” Perrone said.
“We’re asking our engineer to do a finite study of that particular area, because sometimes the federal FEMA studies are done on a broad basis, and they’re not as accurate as a focused, single property study would be,” he said.
Other approvals from the commissioners on Monday included approval of a change order for $44,871.58 on the project to construct three retention basins at and around Pennbrook Middle School. The change order was needed because the contractor building the basins found an unexpected amount of rock below ground, according to Perrone, but the news on that project is not all bad.
“From a budget perspective, a good part of that $44,000 change order was paid for by some cost avoidance — we didn’t build an observation district, that we offered the [North Penn] school district, and they didn’t really want,” he said.
That change order was approved by the board, along with an $11,595.03 payment to contractor Horst Excavating, the fifth payment so far in the project that will likely require one or two more payments later in the spring.
“There’s a number of grass areas that need to be reseeded, but we need to get good, consistent, warm weather to plant that grass. A few shrubs and trees also need to be planted, so we’re looking at April, May or June,” Perrone said.
The board also approved a resolution authorizing staff to pursue a grant seeking $54,000 in Montgomery County grant funds to install lighting around courts for pickleball — a racquet sport similar to tennis — that will be built at the township’s Parkside Place complex.
In January the board awarded a contract for construction of the courts themselves, Perrone said, and lighting had been planned as a long term upgrade if the grant funds aren’t secured now.
“The courts are going to be built. The question is, ‘Are we going to light them?’ Eventually, we are going to light them, but we sure would like to get a grant to do that,” he said.
A brief public hearing was held before the board voted to adopt an updated codification of the township’s codebook, which is meant to consolidate and update ordinances that have been adopted in recent years.
The board also approved a contract for 2017’s road repair projects, and for an engineer to evaluate the bridge carrying Swedesford Road over a creek, with costs to be split with Lower Gwynedd Township since the road acts as the border between the two.
Several upcoming events were also approved by the board, including a “Wish the Well” Walk on May 21 from 9 to 11 a.m.; a Corpus Christi School annual 5K on April 8, and a Laurel house 5K Run on Oct. 22.