Buckingham Mulls Pricey Wastewater System

Buckingham Supervisors devoted a large portion of its Wednesday night budgetary work session to water and sewer matters.

The board reviewed figures culled by township administrators, including Graham Orton, director of the water and wastewater department, as it continues the process of working toward a municipal budget set for 2012.

One of the topics focused on a new spray irrigation field proposed for the Feeney property, which the township is in the midst of purchasing through the land preservation program. About 10 acres of the 80-acre property on Church School Road between Church and Fell roads was tagged for the wastewater treatment site.

The cost of creating such a wastewater system is about $800,000, said township manager Dana Cozza.

The township has a handful of other spray irrigation fields as well as lagoons as holding areas.

Those were severely tested during the spate of wet weather that inundated the area over the summer, especially during Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, said Orton.

“The power outages really killed us,” said Orton. While some systems have built-in generators to accommodate lack of electrical power, others do not. So during times when electrical power was knocked out because of the severe weather – sometimes for three days or more – wastewater built up and had to be pumped out into tankers and taken to sites that had generators.

Some of the sites are still higher than normal, said Orton.

“This was an exceptional year,” he added.

Township officials have talked in the past about creating surge lagoons, designed specifically to act as receptacles for overflows caused by emergency conditions, said Cozza, but the cost could be about $1 million, which the board has always opted not to spend.

Orton said his department has approached the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority to see if they could pump some of the excess wastewater into their system. 

Jim Kettler, township fire marshal and director of building and code, also walked supervisors through proposed budgets for areas he oversees.

Requests for permit fees for building on individual lots have increased, he said. “That’s been a change we’ve noticed over previous years.”

Fees based on the installation of in-ground swimming pools and spas have declined, he said, but fees from construction of home additions or basement renovations have remained steady.

Supervisors are devoting one more work session on Nov. 9 to finalizing budgetary figures. The preliminary budget is set to be unveiled at the Nov. 16 meeting. The Nov. 23 meeting has been canceled.

At the regular meeting following the work session, supervisors awarded certificates of gratitude to two road crew workers/firefighters who were credited with resident who found himself stranded with his vehicle in rapidly rising floodwaters along New Hope Road during Tropical Storm Lee in September.

Commended were Wayne Ewer, assistant roadmaster for Buckingham Township and a past president of Midway Volunteer Fire Co., and Dave James, a member of Wrightstown Township’s road crew and assistant fire chief of Lingohocken Fire Co.

Both men also received citations from State Rep. Bernie O’Neill and State Rep. Scott Petri.

In other announcements, Supervisor Chairman Jon Forest noted:

• A judge on the commonwealth court Oct. 14 wrote an opinion siding with the township on not allowing a 92-home Toll Bros. development to be built in the Mechanicsville section of the township. The issue had been in litigation since the early part of the decade, and initially the courts favored the developer. Township officials initially turned down the development because Toll Bros. would not adhere to certain township standards set forth, such as road improvements, according to township solicitor Craig Smith. Smith said Toll Bros. plans to appeal.
• The appeal by township resident and auditor candidate Harry Heinzl for was rejected by the office of open records. Heinzl had asked for engineering bills submitted by township engineers Knight Engineering as well as a travel itinerary for township manager Dana Cozza. Aside from her salary, Cozza also gets a $500 monthly car allowance earmarked for township business. Township officials denied Heinzl’s request, calling it too vague and citing a hardship on township employees required to gather the material.