Ryan Quinlan ’14: EA recently announced that it will no longer be needing costly sewage removal multiple times a day as it plans to construct a pipeline into the public sewer system. According to Mark Notaro, Director of Facilities and Operations, Aqua Pennsylvania (EA’s current sewage company) “come[s] in multiple times a day with 7,000 and 11,000 gallon trucks…and that’s been going on since we moved out here.”
In the near future, an approximately 1,700 foot pipe will link Episcopal’s sewage to a nearby development. Notaro shared his hopes for the construction, saying “By mid-summer we will have all the approvals necessary which will allow us to come back to the township to apply for a construction permit.” Assuming no other roadblocks,” Notaro added, the construction would be finished “by Christmas.”
During the transition to the Newtown Square campus, EA had initially planned to link to the public sewer from an on-campus system. “We had actually originally proposed to do an on-site plant as part of our whole development,” said Notaro. However, he explained, “The township at that point really discouraged that,” stating that public sewers through the development would be in place once construction on EA was finished.
However, as Notaro explained, developments are not always constructed “as quickly as everyone always wants [them] to and the project next door took a while to get off the ground.” As a result, the plan to link a sewage system through the new development did not originally work. “At one point we went to the township and [stated] that… we would actually consider” connecting the line to down near 252. However, such a plan would have been much more expensive than connecting to the nearby development for the sewer system.
After approximately five years, though, Episcopal will finally be able to link as construction has begun on the development. “They’re doing a lot of their construction work now, and we’re just waiting for one more approval from the DEP [the Department of Environmental Protection],” said Notaro. Once the project has received its final approval, construction of the pipe will take “two to three months,” assuming both construction projects continue smoothly. “The goal,” Notaro concluded, “is that we wrap up as they are tying into the public sewer in one clean process.”