Tying new school into old plant could save $1.5M UFRSD considers using Allentown wastewater facility for Breza site BY JANE MEGGITT Staff Writer Although township and school officials expressed skepticism, Upper Freehold officials voted in favor of a resolution to ask the county to consider expanding Allentown's sewer district to include the new middle school site off Breza Road. Upper Freehold Regional School District (UFRSD) Superintendent Richard Fitzpatrick told the Township Committee at its Oct. 4 meeting that there is a 90-day window of opportunity during which Monmouth County could consider amending its wastewater management plan to allow the borough of Allentown to provide wastewater service to the new school. He and Board of Education President Joseph Stampe attended the meeting to ask the committee to consider this option of providing wastewater service to the new facility and to support it with a letter so the county would consider it. Fitzpatrick said Allentown's engineer sent a letter to the school district stating that the district could potentially save $1.5 million by hooking the site into the borough's treatment plant instead of developing its own plant. After much discussion, the governing body voted unanimously to support a resolution for the county to consider the expansion of the Allentown sewer district to serve the new middle school campus with two conditions. First, the consideration should in no way void the Wastewater Management Plan (WMP) revision that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently issued for the creation of an independent wastewater plant for the new school. Secondly, the Allentown engineer would have to produce a feasibility study regarding the short- and long-term tax savings of the newly proposed wastewater plan to the Township Committee and the school district by Nov. 30. Deputy Mayor William Miscoski, a longtime critic of Allentown Mayor Stuart Fierstein, commented, "Somehow, Allentown is going to screw us. No way we'll save $1.5 million going in with Allentown. We'll lose every time. Allentown is full of crap." Miscoski said that for 12 years he fought to have the Four Seasons active-adult community in town approved and along the way was told by the Allentown mayor that there was no way the development could hook into the borough's sewer plant, since the facility didn't even have the capacity to take on one more house. "I have been lied to by the Allentown mayor," a visibly angry Miscoski alleged. "He told me there was no capacity." Fitzpatrick said the Allentown plant currently serves the existing middle school and that the idea is one of transferring rather than increasing service. Stampe said he and other Board of Education members are skeptical of the plan but that it would be irresponsible for the board not to explore it. The Allentown plant discharges to surface water, according to Stampe, while a new plant designed for the new middle school site would discharge to groundwater. "The DEP is more restrictive to discharge to surface water," he said. "To tie into a plant that is aging, with out-of-date technology, is a concern." Stampe said the Board of Education's plan is to build a wastewater facility that would accommodate both the new middle school and a possible elementary school. He said that the Allentown plant would need enough capacity to handle the middle school and another school years down the road. Committeeman Stephen Alexander asked if Allentown is trying to upgrade its plant "on the back of Upper Freehold." Township Attorney Granville Magee said he has concerns with studying improvements "in a plant out of touch with present science" and with possible delays such a plant could impose on a second school at the Breza Road site. "I have very realistic concerns from my experiences," Magee said. "Assuming everything Allentown wants could be done, who pays and what is the timeline?" When Fitzpatrick said that all the school district wants is for the committee to support an inquiry, Magee said that the issue appears to be "a PR [public relations] thing rather than a legal thing."