[Image: Warren Gormley, Authority Manager at Newtown Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority, addresses NT Board of Supervisors on August 10, 2022.]
Warren Gormley tells supervisors: "It's just not a good thing for the rate payers...it will increase rates dramatically." View the video of his remarks.
The letter states, in part:
This correspondence is being sent on behalf of the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors.
As elected Township officials, we share the common goal of providing valued and cost-effective services to our constituents.
BCWSA has recently announced that it is considering an offer from Aqua America to purchase its assets for $1.1 billion dollars. Aqua has a history of increasing its sewer rates substantially.
The Board of Supervisors believes it is inadvisable for BCWSA to sell its assets to Aqua. As former Township officials yourselves, we are certain you are cognizant of the uncertainty such a potential sale causes ratepayers, particularly in this time of high inflation.
We respectfully solicit the County Commissioners to take any and all reasonable steps to compel BCWSA to abandon its negotiations with Aqua and for BCWSA to continue operating as an independent, non-profit agency, as intended when it was created in 1962 by the Bucks County Commissioners.
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The Sewage Plant Alternative
Back in 2013, Newtown Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority proposed building a sewage treatment plant on the Bypass in Newtown, according to a Patch article (https://patch.com/pennsylvania/newtown-pa/proposed-68m-sewage-treatment-plant-infuriates-neighbors);
Gormley explained to the residents that something has to be done about sewage treatment in Bucks County. There has been a moratorium on building permits because Bucks County's sewer line is hydraulically overloaded, he explained.
"Because of that, we are looking for options," Gormley said.
Currently, Newtown's sewage is handled by the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority, which sends some of its waste to Philadelphia's overloaded system," Newtown Joint Municipal Authority Board of Directors Chairman Eric Johnson explained.
"Their systems are falling apart. They are leaking raw sewage all over the place," Johnson said.
The process comes with a hefty price tag for Newtown—on average, the Municipal Authority pays about a quarter of a million dollars a month to treat local waste, an expense that is passed on to ratepayers.
Over the last nine years, rates have exponentially increased, Municipal Authority Member Allen Fidler explained. "It's an assumption they will continue (to increase). If that is the case, the best option financially may be to consider our own treatment facility reactivated if it's cost effective," he said.
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