New school's wastewater issues down to the wire BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer ALLENTOWN- It's time to decide. The Upper Freehold Regional Board of Educationwill have tomake a final decision at itsMarch 19meeting whether to build its own wastewater treatment plant or tap into the Allentown plant to provide wastewater services to the new middle school on Breza Road. The board has been pursuing both options for wastewater treatment in an effort to find the most efficient and cost-effective means of servicing the new school. The Board of Education had voted on Sept. 19, 2007 to have a 40,000-gallon-perdaywastewater facility designed for the new middle school site but has also continued to explore the possibility of hooking the school site into theAllentown facility. Rick Brown, of the DEP, spoke to the board in January and said the Allentown plant has the capacity to take the flow from the new school. Brown also told the board that tapping into the existing plant is the DEP's preferred path for the board to take as the DEP does not want school districts in the wastewater treatment business. As designed, themiddle schoolwill house 920 students but with an addition has the potential to ultimately house 1,200 students. The additional acreage that the school district purchased along Breza Road could potentially house another school for 666 students, which is the size of an elementary or primary school. According to theAllentown Borough Engineer Eric C. Betz, theAllentown plant has a capacity and permit to handle .1904 million gallons per day and the new middle schoolwould bring its current capacity up to .0097million gallons per day. In order to acceptwastewater fromfuture development at the site and/or other properties along route 524, the plant would require recertification of the permitted capacity and/or expansion of the plant, which would require a stream analysis. In an effort to tie the new school into the existingwastewater facility inAllentown,Allentown applied to Monmouth County and the state for awastewatermanagement plan revision.Allentown applied for the necessary revision on Jan. 17 but the application to the county was deemed incomplete on Feb. 27. According to Jessica Kubida, the principal planner for theMonmouth County Planning Board, the application is incomplete because it lacks drawings and/or site plans, has multiple discrepancies as to what the true generated wastewater flow from the new school campus will be and does not address total build-out of the parcel. She also states that the support fromUpper Freehold is not clear. At itsMarch 5 meeting, the board voted to request Upper Freehold Township approve a resolution in support of expanding theAllentownWastewater Treatment Plant to serve the new campus. According to Board of Education President Joseph Stampe, the DEP has already approved thewastewatermanagement plan revision on the conditions that Monmouth County,Allentown andUpper Freehold support that revision. The school district had already applied for and received a wastewatermanagement plan revision for building its own on-site wastewater facility. For the construction of the on-site wastewater facility, the school district also had to apply to the DEP for the required New Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NJPDES) permit. There is no statute of limitation on how long the DEP can take to issue a NJPDES permit. Tying the school site into the existingAllentown facility would negate the need for a NJPDES permit. Stampe said if the board pursues theAllentown plant path onMarch 19, it could have a TWA by the end of April. Once the project gets TWA, construction can start. The board has estimated the cost of building a 40,000-gallon-per-day facility at $2.5 million. If the district taps into the Allentown facility, it would lose $40,000 in design costs but could save $1.6 million in other costs. The board's professionals have been asked to prepare detailed cost comparisons of both options for the March 19 meeting. The board is also considering that theAllentown plant is old and needs upgrades.Allentown's engineerwrote in a letter of intent for theAllentown project that the borough is committed to making advances in its infiltration/ inflowreduction program. The letter also explains that the borough will implement amaintenance upgrade at the plant to repair and replace malfunctioning equipment and to increase the permitted capacity. Brown said that the costs of any upgrades or repairs at that plant would be distributed amongst all the ratepayers.