Sewickley planning for major sewage plant project

A multi-million dollar upgrade project is being planned for Sewickley’s wastewater treatment plant.

The plant serves hSewickley, Glen Osborne, Haysville and Aleppo. It handles more than 146 million gallons of sewage annually.

Mike Galet of Gateway Engineers said the plant needs to be brought up to current operating standards in an effort to address overflows and Allegheny County Health Department violations.

Proposed repairs include fixing corroded concrete at the headworks building at Ferry and Chadwick streets, replacing corroded electrical, heating and ventilation systems, screening processes and sluice gates.

The digester tank and building will also need upgrades to its “digestion process,” along with new equipment and security upgrades with the goal of lowering total operation costs, Galet said.

Equipment upgrades to the sludge compactor and upgrades to the disinfection system are also part of the project to extend the plant’s service life and process future projected flows.

Initial total costs are estimated to be about $2.57 million.

Sewickley requested a $1.28 million grant and was awarded $875,000 in federal money through the state Department of Community and Economic Development.

Funds are from the American Rescue Plan Act via Pennsylvania’s Water Supply, Sanitary Sewer and Storm Water Projects Program — H2O PA.

“The borough has applied for additional grants for this project, which would work as the local project match, if received,” Galet said. “These grants have not yet been announced, but we expect to know whether they’ve been approved by late (this year).

“If no additional grant funding is received, the borough has the ability to either complete all of the improvements initially proposed, or reduce and/or phase the plant improvements scope to address the immediate plant non-compliance items and develop a plan fund the remaining non-critical repairs in a future project.

“The borough has not yet finalized the final scope of repairs that will be completed in this initial phase.”

Sewickley has about $800,000 in sewer reserve funds to use as a grant funding match without having to consider a loan or bonds for additional financing.

Council President Cynthia Mullins said this project has been in development for awhile.

“I think the most important thing for residents to understand is that not only are we upgrading the wastewater treatment system but we are also converting to a low-odor aerobic process,” Mullins said.

“Much of the financing will come from cash reserves on hand and grants. Sewickley sewer rates have not been raised since 2016 and we hope to get through (the) project with either no rate increase or a very small one.

Council has committed to a plan that should ensure safe, environmentally responsible service for our community at a reasonable rate.”

The hope is to create a repair contract next year after more grant funding information is received.