Upper Gwynedd Approves 2024 Budget, Sewer Rate Increase

Dan Sokil | The Reporter•

Upper Gwynedd Township Manager Sandra Brookley Zadell describes the township’s Wastewater Improvement Plan, and how recent plant upgrades have made tw

The 2024 budget for Upper Gwynedd is now on the books, with mixed news for township residents.

The township’s commissioners voted unanimously Monday night to adopt a budget with no tax increase, but a $75 sewer increase — and cited heavy rains the day before as one reason the sewer rate hike is necessary.

"While I am not recommending a tax increase, as you saw in my budget presentation last month, we are recommending an increase in the wastewater rate,” said township Manager Sandra Brookley Zadell.

"What we’re looking to do is increase the rate the residents pay by $75 per EDU, so for a typical homeowner, that’s $75 a year,” she said.

In November the manager publicly presented a $17.8 million township budget for 2024, detailing line-by-line the projected revenues, expenses, and projects on the to-do list for the upcoming year. Major projects pushed back from 2023 into ’24 due to timing issues include replacement of a bridge on Sumneytown Pike and stormwater upgrades along Haines Run near the township’s wastewater plant, while higher general fund expenses include safety upgrades to the township administration building, increased police costs due to contractually required salary increases, and the addition of one more fulltime officer, bringing the department’s count of sworn officers to 23.

The budget also includes nearly $1 million in pipeline repairs and stormwater inlet fixes, roughly $600,000 more in stormwater pipe maintenance, and nearly $1 million in capital upgrades at the wastewater plant, meant to prevent plant damage from flooding like occurred in the summer of 2020 — and did not occur more recently, the manager said Monday, relaying a message from the plant’s Director of Wastewater Operations Dan Farris heavy rains on Sunday caused no sanitary sewer overflows.

"We had a ton of rain last night. We had a ton of really quick rain, which was, for the past two to three years, really plagued our wastewater department. I want to give credit to the team there,” she said.

"All of our staff at the wastewater treatment plant, every single one of them chip in when we get a high flow event, and they do a great job. I’m very excited when I get a text from Dan that said, in his many words: ‘Lots of rain. No SSOs.’ So that’s the good news,” Zadell said.

In the November budget presentation, the manager had outlined the wastewater plant’s planned capital projects, all to be funded via roughly $1 million in new annual revenue from the town’s first sewer rate hike since 2017.

Those projects include new gates that control flow in the plant and let operators isolate certain equipment; evaluation of groundwater infiltration into a storage tank; new tank skimmers; an upgraded influent screen; a study of the bridge that is the only access route into and out of the plant’s main entrance; developing specifications for replacements and upgrades to obsolete sludge pumps tentatively slated for 2025; upgrades to effluent pumps currently operated manually; engineering on new influent distribution boxes that will be automated and should help prevent overflows; evaluating aeration systems and the plant’s chemical feeds; and upgrades to the aeration systems for sludge.

A displaced storage tank inside Upper Gwynedd’s wastewater treatment plant is seen surrounded by stormwater caused by heavy rains during Tropical Storm Isaias on Aug. 4, 2020,

"The rate increase that you just approved, they not only make our processes more efficient, but they also protect the environment. That’s something that I think is important to all of us,” Zadell said.

All of the projects should reduce costs for residents over time, the manager said, but require upfront spending first.

"We have had a lot of new projects started at the plant, as well as capital upgrades that have been delayed through time. At that November meeting, I went through 12 to 15 slides of capital upgrades that we have projected over the next few years: it’s about $3.2 million of capital upgrades over the next three years alone,” she said.

"They are all aimed at efficiency and more automatic operations. They also have the added benefit of reducing staff overtime, and in some cases reducing chemical and sludge hauling costs. But before we experience those efficiencies that we will gain in the future from these projects, we do need some funding to complete them. So that is the reason for the increase,” she said.

With the increase, Upper Gwynedd’s sewer rate would still be the second-lowest of all neighboring municipalities, the manager added.

"I don’t want anyone to think that we take it lightly, to make a recommendation of an increase. But it is something that’s important for us to maintain a high-class, efficient, — not easy to operate, I don’t think wastewater operations are ever easy to operate — but a more efficient operation,” Zadell said.

Commissioner Liz McNaney added that residents can read a detailed breakdown of those projects and their cost estimates in the board’s online meeting materials packet, and Zadell said that analysis and the capital projects presentation are available on the township’s website.

Three budget-related action items were approved unanimously by the commissioners: adoption of the 2024 budget, the 2024 tax rate ordinance making no changes to current levels, and the 2024 sewer rate ordinance, all of which are available in the online meeting materials packet for that night. After those votes, the manager then previewed two action items up for board approval next week: a $250,000 contract for cleaning and televising sewer mains and laterals and a $141,000 contract for manhole lining and sealing, saying both were part of keeping the plant and its pipelines in top shape, and approvals are needed soon to finalize scheduling for the work.

"We’ve spent a lot of money last year, this year and next year, on I and I remediation. That is becoming something that’s making an impact,” Zadell said, before explaining that I and I stood for inflow and infiltration of clean rainwater or groundwater into the sewer system.

"We don’t want to have to treat it. We want that to stay separate from our sewer system, and in order to do that we have to do things like replace manhole linings, and chimney seals, and clean and televise our sewer mains to see if roots are impeding what’s happening there,” she said.

Upper Gwynedd’s commissioners next meet at 7 p.m. on Dec. 18 at the township administration building, 1 Parkside Place. For more information visit www.UpperGwynedd.org.

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