Freeport taxpayers soon will see progress on a project they’ve helped to pay for over the past year — and into the future.
The borough will break ground Monday on its $18.6 million sewage treatment plant.
“Freeport Borough is finally upgrading its wastewater treatment plant,” said Zachary Filous, borough manager.
The sewage treatment plant will put the borough in compliance with federal and state mandates and will be built next to Freeport’s existing plant.
“It’s important that we’re finally going to have the groundbreaking, and people will see where exactly the increases were going,” Mayor Zack Gent said.
The increases Gent’s referring to are a staggered sewage rate adjustment taxpayers first saw last year.
Last year, ratepayers paid a $17 increase per bill, and will pay another $10 more per bill this year. The proposed increase next year is $6, but “we’re working to get it down, if we can,” Gent said.
Gent said borough officials are pursuing avenues to relieve taxpayers from the third-year increase by inquiring with county, state and federal officials.
Grant funding already is paying for more than half of the project.
“We were able to get grant funding of over $12 million, and then we did a bond issue to cover the gaps,” Gent said.
Freeport previously was awarded an $11 million grant from PennVEST and also got a $1.5 million grant from U.S. Sen. Bob Casey’s office.
KLH Engineering of Robinson is the project’s engineering firm.
The plant needed upgrades to meet state and federal environmental regulations. , Gent said the current plant discharges partially treated sewage during heavy rains into Buffalo Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River.
“This was a project that wasn’t negotiable, it wasn’t optional,” he said. “It had to be completed.”
Also, as Freeport becomes an outdoor recreational and tourism spot, it’s even more important to comply with state and federal standards, Gent said.
“We didn’t buy the ‘Cadillac’ of sewage treatment plants,” Gent said. “… The emphasis was to buy for functionality.”
The new sewage treatment plant will service Freeport Borough, which consists of about 800 homes and properties, or roughly 1,700 people, Filous said. In the future, it could serve some surrounding areas, he said.
The current plant treats about 1 million gallons of wastewater per day.
The new plant will treat three times as much, Filous said.
“It’s a pretty significant increase for us,” Filous said.
Filious anticipates construction to take between 18 months and two years. Once complete, the borough plans to have an open house.
Having the construction underway also will free up time for borough officials to work on other projects, Gent said.
“By breaking ground, it gets us closer to the end of the chapter,” he said.
