Export officials vote to keep $8 sewage surcharge in place

Two Export council members want the borough to keep its word and remove an $8 surcharge on sewage customers that was originally intended to expire after a year.

But ongoing expenses related to its long-term flood control plan and its participation in a state environmental consent order kept that from happening.

Council voted 5-2 this week to keep the surcharge, imposed in March 2020 in response to requirements in the state Department of Environmental Protection’s 2019 consent order with the Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority and its client communities. Council members John Nagoda and Vince Harding voted no.

The consent order lays out a roughly eight- to nine-year process to identify and address stormwater inflow and infiltration issues throughout the system. That includes flow monitors, which were required to be in place longer than originally planned.

In addition, council President Barry Delissio said the borough is looking at roughly $50,000 in upcoming work related to either the long-term flood control plan or the consent order.

Nagoda felt that leaving the surcharge in place was breaking council’s word to residents.

“We made a promise that this additional billing will be temporary,” he said. Nagoda and Harding supported a motion to remove the surcharge, but it failed by a 5-2 vote.

“I get it. We said it’d be a finite amount of time,” Councilwoman Melanie Litz said. “But we had these things come up that we just couldn’t have anticipated.”

“You know that you’re going to have more bills coming,” solicitor Adam Long said. “And if you (remove it now and) have to add it back on later, I think you’re going to end up adding more to it.”

Mayor Joe Zaccagnini said he thinks residents will be understanding of the borough’s situation.

“Things have happened that will make it difficult to take that $8 off,” he said. “But I believe that people in the borough will accept an explanation for why we have to do it, with an apology and maybe a firm set date that it’ll be removed.”

Litz didn’t think that was possible.

“I don’t think we can set a date right now with confidence, when we’re constantly getting slammed,” she said.

According to the original timeline of the consent order, FTMSA must submit flow monitoring results to the DEP by September. By next March, it must prepare a flow model of its entire system. By September 2022, FTMSA must submit a plan to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows in the system. That plan will be developed in concert with all of FTMSA’s client communities.