Western Pa. towns under DEP sewage consent order request extension

More than $5 million has been spent since 2019 to improve the sewage system that serves tens of thousands of customers in western Westmoreland and a small slice of Allegheny counties.

The improvements are mandated by the state Department of Environmental Protection through a 2019 consent order.

Now, the Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority and its client communities are asking for a little more time to prove the work they’ve done to eliminate unwanted stormwater in the sewage system will pay off.

FTMSA and its client communities have been part of a state consent order since 2019, when they were charged with eliminating the inflow and infiltration of stormwater into local sewage systems. The overall goal is to eliminate sanitary sewage overflows that discharge into regional waterways, a situation that was particularly exacerbated by heavy rain.

The authority serves Murrysville, Export, Delmont and portions of Salem, Penn Township, Monroeville and Plum.

Export council voted unanimously at its monthly meeting Tuesday night to support an extension to the consent order’s timeline. It provides extra time to conduct flow monitoring, as well as pushes back the deadline for the authority to submit a plan to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection on how they will eliminate sewage overflows.

Murrysville officials voted to support the extension at their meeting Wednesday night. Long said state environmental officials have approved the extension.

“This will let us do some additional flow monitoring from March 2026 until October 2026,” said Export and FTMSA solicitor Wes Long. “And then the final elimination plan would be due in April 2027 (instead of September 2026). The hope is that the data will reduce some of the requirements in the (final) elimination plan. If we can get the inflow and infiltration out of the system, that will make things less costly for rate-payers when we’re formulating the (overflow) elimination plan.”

Stormwater in the system is essentially a waste of the authority’s resources — it is filtered by the ground and does not need to be treated — and to date, efforts to clear it out of the system have resulted in about 4 million fewer gallons entering the plant during rainstorms, according to authority manager Nicholas Kerr.

In 2020, the average daily flow into the plant was about 3.7 million gallons; as of late 2024, it was 2.5 million, which is roughly a 35% reduction.

That is the result of mapping out water flow throughout the system, identifying and addressing problem areas.

“A few years ago when it would rain, we were getting surges (in the sewage system) from above us and below us,” Export Council President Barry Delissio said. “But during recent rain, I haven’t heard of FTMSA having sewage overflows.”

“They’ve been massively reduced from where they were,” Long said. “It is unbelievable how much water was getting into the system — during rain events, it was in the millions of gallons. … The work that’s been going on has made a big difference. Hopefully it’s enough of a difference that the final SSO elimination plan won’t be significant.”

Long said staff from Gibson Thomas Engineering will determine how many flow monitors Export will need to install in 2026.