West Pottsgrove OKs $200K Sewer Settlement

How much township business can you conduct in 40 minutes?

As it turns out, a fair amount if you are the West Pottsgrove Township Commissioners.

Perhaps the most fruitful thing to occur in that short period of time was an agreement to settle with Rettew Assoc. engineers for the under-engineering of the Grosstown Road sewer pump station.

The Grosstown Road pump station is located adjacent to

the parking lot at the township building which is, obviously,

on Grosstown Road.

The board agreed to a settlement amount of $212,500 with the firm that designed upgrades to the sewer pump station that were, evidently, inadequate to the flow of sewage.

At least three years of problems, including sewer back-ups into the basements of two or three unfortunate households, led to the litigation.

During heavy flows, and heavy rains, the township has to bring in auxiliary equipment to push the sewage through the system to the treatment plant in Pottstown at a fast enough rate to avoid those back-ups.

The fix to the station is estimated to cost $168,000 and the difference between the two figures would cover legal and engineering fees for the fix. But no mention was made of covering the cost of bringing in extra pumping equipment.

In other business, the commissioners voted to extend for three months the five-year-old trash collection contract with Waste Management Inc. to allow for more time to prepare bids for the next contract.

The board also voted to double the rental fee for the pavilion at the township building from $25 to $50 to help defray the costs of clean-up incurred by township staff.

Also, a new Community Day Committee was formed and community members and businesses are being asked to join to help improve the annual celebration. Those interested should contact the township manager's office at 610-323-7717.

And here are the Tweets.