A creek runs past the entrance to the Upper Gwynedd Wastewater Treatment Plant on Friday, Oct. 15 2021. Photo by Dan Sokil | The Reporter.
Board also votes ahead sewer rate study
A new year has brought approval of an agreement between Upper Gwynedd and the federal Environmental Protection Agency over a long-running dispute.
Township commissioners voted unanimously this week to approve a $16,000 settlement with EPA over what the township characterized as a paperwork error.
“This is about administrative allegations, and no environmental impact has occurred in our township. The requirements are administrative in nature,” said township Manager Sandra Brookley Zadell.
Details of the agreement were posted by the township in their online meeting materials for Jan. 12, and list how the consent agreement between EPA and the township is allowed under section 309 of the federal Clean Water Act, and includes language that says the township “neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations” set forth in the agreement. According to the manager, the township was required to submit certain environmental reports to the federal EPA for 2023 by the 2024 deadline, and did not submit a required pollutant list in time, due to reasons outside the township’s control
“These were due to our township consulting engineer having a change of staffing, and it got lost in the shuffle. (Township) personnel did complete all the required sampling, all testing was done and submitted to EPA, and that’s why I’m saying there was not an actual environmental impact, but just a paperwork impact,” Zadell said.
Under the settlement, according to the manager, the township agrees to pay a civil penalty of $16,000, “which will be reimbursed to us from our consulting engineer” Gilmore and Associates she said. The agreement requires a period of 40 days to allow public comment, Zadell told the public, starting with the approval of the agreement Monday night.
Commissioners President Rebecca Moodie asked if the agreement, once approved, would “close the issue? Is there anything else open related to this?” Solicitor Lauren Gallagher said that depends on the public comment period.
“There is a 40 day public comment notice period, but the underlying issue has since been corrected, and we have set up additional safeguards to make sure it does not occur again,” the attorney said.
“EPA does seem satisfied with those additional safeguards, so this should resolve this issue. But there is that 40 day public comment period, so it’s possible there is additional action needed after that,” Gallagher said.
The board also unanimously approved another wastewater-related item: a motion directing the manager to execute an agreement with an outside firm to perform a sewer rate study, at a cost not to exceed $30,000.
In 2023 the then-commissioners approved the first increase in the town’s sewer rate since 2017, and said at that time the hike was needed to fund capital upgrades and replenish sewer fund reserves. Over the same period, neighboring Towamencin — which shared a sewer plant with Upper Gwynedd from the 1960s until a formal separation was finalized in 2015 — debated their own sewer rates and infrastructure from years, as that town’s board voted to study a sewer sale in 2020, chose to sell their sewer system in 2022, a resident-led opposition effort rewrote the township charter in 2023 to make the sale illegal, and the township and buyer tabled that sale in 2024 as that board approved rate hikes in 2021 and ’23 and their own rate study in 2025.
Upper Gwynedd’s vote to start the sewer rate study was unanimously approved by that board with no comments from the board or public.
That board next meets at 7 p.m. on Feb. 3 at the township administration building, 1 Parkside Place. For more information visit www.UpperGwynedd.org.
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