MAWC's Avonmore plant upgrades are final step to address DEP corrective action plan

The Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County secured a $1.2 million loan and $1.8 million grant from the federal government that will allow it to upgrade its Avonmore plant at no cost to customers.

The $3.1 million project, funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Services, includes the construction of a larger collection pipe leading to the plant and the plant’s conversion to a more advanced method for processing waste water, called a sequencing batch reactor, or SBR.

The project addresses the final portion of a corrective action plan issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

“The SBR process allows the plant to run more efficiently in low-flow situations,” authority spokesman Matthew Junker said. “When the weather’s dry, there’s not a lot of flow going through there, so if you make it into a batch-process plant, where you segregate smaller portions and just work on each of those in turn, the resulting water is cleaner at the end.”

The project will increase the facility’s capacity, allowing it to function better during heavy rains as well.

The loan and grant also will fund an ultraviolet disinfection system to meet new permit limits imposed on the plant, which will transition from its existing chlorine disinfection system.

The authority will contribute about $171,000 to the project.

The Avonmore system, purchased in 2001 and serving about 430 customers, was the authority’s first foray into the sewage business. Since then, the agency has purchased more than a half dozen sewer systems in the region, including large-scale operations in Hempfield and Jeannette.

The authority has more than 26,000 sewage customers and 112,000 water customers in Westmoreland, Allegheny, Armstrong, Indiana and Fayette counties.