School's new wastewater plan gets OK Allentown facility likely to service Breza Road campus BY JANE MEGGITT Staff Writer UPPER FREEHOLD - The township will support the new school tying into Allentown's wastewater treatment plant. After long public and executive session discussion at its March 20 meeting, the Township Committee unanimously agreed to conditionally support the Upper Freehold Regional School District's (UFRSD) desire to connect the new middle school on Breza Road to the Allentown plant. The resolution states that the committee previously adopted a resolution in support of the application on the condition that the UFRSD supply a feasibility study no later than Dec. 1, 2007. The feasibility study concerns the middle school and a future elementary school on the Breza Road tract having a total wastewater capacity of 40,000 gallons per day. The governing body did not receive the feasibility study until March 17, according to the new resolution. Mayor Steve Alexander said that if the UFRSD had given the Township Committee the feasibility study in December, the board would have received the resolution of support earlier. "We know there is an urgent need for a new school," he said. "Now it seems the urgency is to make a decision in one-and-ahalf hours of this meeting, while other entities here had time to get us this information." When Alexander said the Township Committee has not done anything to slow the process down, Board of Education President Joe Stampe agreed with him. Alexander said the right decision is to support the school but that the committee has articulated its concerns about the tie-in in the resolution. The Township Committee filed comments and objections to certain elements of the proposed wastewater plan with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on March 19. The committee objected to the proposed removal of the discharge to groundwater designation on the property surrounding the middle school site. The resolution states that the committee would only consent to remove the designation if and when there are deeds preserving the property in perpetuity. Township Attorney Granville Magee said he received a call from Neil Van Cleef's attorney. Van Cleef owns the property around the school site, which is slated for preservation. Magee said the landowner had not received notice from Allentown about filing for a wastewater management plan revision with the county and the state. Magee said that the township did not receive notification either. Allentown applied for the necessary revision on Jan. 17 but the application to the county was deemed incomplete on Feb. 27. While Van Cleef 's property is designated for preservation, Magee said the landowner wishes to protect his rights. He said the land's current wastewater management plan approval would disappear under the revision. "It would have been nice if Allentown noticed all," Magee said. In an effort to protect Van Cleef 's interests, the Township Committee said in its resolution that it would not support the removal of the discharge to groundwater designation of 86,760 gallons per day from the surrounding property. The resolution also states that Upper Freehold would only support the extension if Allentown waives the 1.5-accelerator for nonresident users of the plant. And, although the resolution supports the UFRSD's desire to connect the new school to the Allentown Borough Wastewater Treatment Plant, it does not void the Wastewater Management Plan revision the DEP issued on Aug. 7, 2007, for an independent 40,000-gallon-per-day on-campus wastewater treatment plant. UFRSD had been simultaneously pursuing creating its own wastewater facility and tying into the Allentown plant in order to find the most efficient and cost-effective means of supplying wastewater services to the new school. Stampe said the school district wanted the committee to pass the resolution in support of the tie-in that night because the contract with Applied Water, the company designing the on-site plant, had just come out of attorney review. Moving forward with that contract would cost $175,000, according to Gabrielle Dujue, of Marlton-based Hill International, the construction management firm for the middle school project. Dujue spoke to the committee about tying into the Allentown plant versus building an on-site sewage treatment plant. She said the DEP has no violations on record for the Allentown plant, which has sufficient capacity to accommodate 30,000 gallons per day from the new middle school as well as a 27,000- gallon-per-day surplus. Dujue said the DEP has recommended that the school use the Allentown plant because it does not like to see school districts operating sewerage treatment plants. The school district would spend $1.2 million to tie in to the Allentown plant, which would save the district $1.4 million for not having to build its own facility, according to Dujue. Annual operating costs to maintain a plant have been estimated at $125,000, whereas the school would pay Allentown $68,850 per year for services, she said. Dujue also said that Allentown has indicated that it would not assess the typical 50 percent mark-up for connection fees, but that she did not have that in writing. Stampe said the borough is expected to send an agreement to waive the markup after spring break. Stampe added that all of the school district's professionals have recommended pursuing the Allentown treatment plant as opposed to an on-site facility. He said UFRSD would be responsible should an on-site plant fail, while all ratepayers would bear the cost of remediation should the Allentown plant fail. Township Engineer Glenn Gerken said the Township Committee has concerns with the operation of the Allentown plant. He said the borough's engineer related that Allentown entered into a permit capacity assurance program with the DEP in 2001 due to leaky pipes putting extra water in the system. Gerken said pipe remediation reduced the infiltration. Gerken said the plant has a permitted capacity of 238,000 gallons per day. He said the plant would be approved to handle 14,500 gallons per day to service the new school but should be approved to handle an additional 30,000 gallons per day." The borough said [it is] already generating flow to the Allentown treatment plant, but [that means] you can't have any new kids going to the old school site," he said. "My concern is that the state is trying to approve the lower numbers. I don't think that is proper." Gerken said the plant currently services the existing middle school. He said a future elementary school on the Breza Road site would generate an additional 10,000 gallons per day. Alexander commented that the regional school district is wedded to having two schools on the Breza Road site as per last year's referendum. Township Attorney Granville Michael Magee said that the additional 10,000 gallons per day should be earmarked now so the Allentown plant could not sell that capacity to someone else in the future. Stampe said the DEP would not assign 10,000 gallons for an elementary school the district currently has no plans for.