One of Paul Rickard’s first moves as Mount Hope town supervisor was to find out why a so-called state-of-the-art sewer plant serving the Hidden Valley development wasn’t working correctly.
About a hundred families live in that community, and they are still making payments to a decade-old, $1 million-plus loan for the advanced sewer system.
It was once billed as one of the state’s first membrane bioreactor treatment plants and was constructed to eliminate issues plaguing an older facility—but problems haven’t gone away.
“The sewage flow rates are too high,” Mr. Rickard, who toured the plant in his first week as supervisor, told The Epoch Times. “The challenge is to figure out why we have that high flow and come up with a real plan—no one has ever come up with a plan.”
In theory, the sewage flow rate at the plant should mirror the level of water use in that housing development, which averages about 15,000 gallons a day at peak times, according to Mr. Rickard.
However, during his visit, the plant’s daily flow rate was measured at about 80,000 gallons, meaning roughly 65,000 gallons of water was infiltrating the system that day.
The infiltration rates fluctuate because of various factors, including weather.
At the Jan. 16 meeting, the town board hired back Jason Pitingaro, who specializes in wastewater treatment and previously worked on the Hidden Valley plant, as town engineer.
“The engineer is going to do an evaluation and come up with short-term, intermediate, and long-term plans for that plant,” he said. “And we are going to aggressively find grants to cover the costs.”
At the recommendation of Mr. Rickard, the town board also voted to take the first step toward creating a sewer district advisory board consisting of Hidden Valley residents.
