Every great story has
two critical elements: the hero and the
villain. Our culture has become such
that figuring out whom to root for in our modern tales barely requires breaking
a sweat: you always root for the
underdog over the privileged elite, the poor over the rich, the nerd over the
jock, and always, ALWAYS the environment over the developer. In the story where the environment is in
jeopardy, you always root for the environment.
Except when the
environment isn’t really in jeopardy.
And the ones who are championing it may have motives that are more
self-serving than altruistic. When the
Perkiomen Creek is the point of contention, environmentalism can be a
convenient cover for NIMBYs and political gamesmanship.
The story of the Lower
Perkiomen Middle Interceptor may be such a story. Up until recently, you’ve heard one side; the
easy side: The side of the tireless champions of the environment fighting the
nefarious forces of development, the romantic tale of the little guy standing
fearlessly in front of the bulldozer. A
story where the heroes and villains are so obvious couldn’t possibly have
another side, could it?
Well, maybe. Most of the articles published in local
papers or online to date appear to have taken some individuals’ assertions at face
value without researching them; I’ve found numerous documents that contradict
those assertions. I leave it to you to decide whether there are good guys and
bad guys in this story, or just differences of opinion and conflicting
interests.
The middle portion of
the sewer interceptor is part of a larger regional sewer upgrade project planned
ten years ago by the Lower Perkiomen Valley Regional Sewer Authority (LPVRSA) (which
I’ve written about previously, here). The plans are
slowly moving forward, but not without all the attendant mess and drama that
comes with removing a stubborn blockage from a sewage pipe.
After the PA DEP
approved the location of the middle interceptor on the LP side of the creek in
2004, the design plans were begun, although the Executive Summary of the
original Act 537 plan* approved in February 2004 contained language indicating
that the interceptor paralleling was to occur in “previously disturbed areas” –
something that is not physically possible for any of the interceptor sections.
The map included as part of the Act 537 plan showed a bold blue line indicating
that the interceptor could be on either side of the creek.
The issue has been
heating up (backing up?) over the summer, with LP on the offensive in the
press. You may have seen many of the articles and posts on Patch and in the
Times Herald giving their perspective. As always,
however, there are two sides to every story, and recently, LPVRSA (see their
Fact sheet, here)
and the other five individual member municipalities began to fight back to
address the lopsided story being told by Lower Providence. Two of the six member municipalities recently
sent letters to their rate payers blaming Lower Providence for a rise in rates.
My interest in the
subject at this time is driven by one thing: why hasn’t the press gone looking
for other sides of the story? If I had questions that were going unasked and
unanswered, surely others must be, too.
It’s a long story, with a lot of moving parts, but your public dollars
are being spent and rates are going up accordingly.
You decide if that
expenditure is worth it or an exercise in vanity.
History of LPVRSA
LP has a contentious
history as a member of LPVRSA. The regional authority as we know it today was
created in 1986 as a replacement for the municipalities’ collaboration with the
Montgomery County Sewer Authority. When LPVRSA was formed, Montgomery County
was to stay involved until 2006, then exit and hand over control of the sewer
system to LPVRSA. The system was already in a state of disrepair back then and
in dire need of additional capacity. In order to get EDUs needed to expand the
plant to serve the growing member communities, Upper Providence took the lead
in getting the other members to cooperate in an effort to get the County to
exit sooner – and the County wanted out as well. Montgomery County turned the system over to
LPVRSA completely in 2002.
To boil a very complex
issue down to its simplest elements (the details of that conflict would require an entirely separate post), a conflict
arose over allocation of EDUs between each member community and the valuation
of each. At the very last meeting, where the signing to transfer power from the
County to LPVRSA was to take place, Upper Providence and Lower Providence were
the last two member communities to sign, and as it turned out, neither wanted
to sign due to the EDU dispute. While a solution was negotiated at the time
that got the two to sign, it is still a sore point with LP that carries over
into the present time and is why, along with a dispute over how the Sewer
Services Agreement is interpreted, LP has escrowed a portion of their payments
for sewer treatment charges invoiced by LPVRSA since 2004 – representing the
difference between what LP and LPVRSA believe they owe -- to the tune of
approximately $300,000 a year, or $3 million to date, instead of paying that to
LPVRSA.
In addition, more
recently LP has locked horns with LPVRSA with struggles over Right To Know
requests – in 2010 LP was sued by LPVRSA over their refusal to turn over
relevant documents, and lost in court in a 2011 decision – and placement of the
middle interceptor on the Lower Providence side along the creek.
Lower Providence Board of Supervisors joins forces with the
Special Interests
LP’s Board of
Supervisors intervened in the current middle interceptor dispute a couple of
years ago, in April 2010, at the behest of a special interest group populated
by some members of the Indianhead Watershed Association who live on the LP side
of the creek. Arcola Road resident Cathy Beyer has been their unofficial
spokesperson (the Association itself has taken a neutral stance since it has
members on both sides of the creek) for several years in front of our BOS and in
January 2012 was appointed to LP’s Sewer Authority.
Ironically a few years
back (2007-2008), Mrs. Beyer made a pitch to LP’s Parks & Recreation Board,
asking for permission to operate a commercial business at the nearby bucolic
creekside setting of Hoy Park. LP shot down her request because she didn’t want
to assume setup costs nor pay LP Township anything. She apparently wasn’t averse to making money off a public
property by bringing tourists and the noise and trash they bring with them to
the same peaceful, beautiful environment whose disruption she is now so loudly
protesting.
LP Township is
advocating against the interceptor's placement on the LP side of the creek,
which LPVRSA documents indicate is arguably the least expensive and disruptive
option, in favor of placing it on the Upper Providence side. Anything other than the first option below, using
gravity, will require at least one pumping station. The most recent options and
alternatives are listed below; LPVRSA is now soliciting updated construction
cost estimates for each from two contractors for each option, several of which
are newer ones:
- Arcola 1 (East) - The current gravity design which is
routed through Lower Providence residents’ backyards for this section.
This alternative involves 3,200 feet of 54” of sewer and 600 feet of
inverted siphon stream crossings. This option is the least expensive.
- Arcola 2 (West) – 3,600 feet of
54” gravity sewer on the Upper Providence side of the Perkiomen Creek,
offset 30 feet from existing 42” interceptor. This option costs considerably more
because the 30’ offset requires cutting into the steep slope immediately
next to the existing interceptor.
For both Arcola 1 and 2, LPVRSA will
also examine the potential of using smaller pipes through simultaneous use of
the existing 42” interceptor (slip-lined), moving the connection location of
the Doe Run interceptor, or a combination of both (a 7th option).
·
Arcola
3 (West) - 3,550 feet of gravity sewer installed in the same trench as the
existing 42” sewer.
·
Arcola
4 (West) – Using the existing interceptor (slip-lined), and building a pump
station located on the Upper Providence side of the Perkiomen, immediately
downstream of the Arcola Road bridge.
·
Arcola
4e (East) – Using the existing interceptor (slip-lined), and building a 16 mgd
pump station located on the Lower Providence side of the Perkiomen, immediately
downstream of the Arcola Road bridge.
·
Arcola
5 (East) – Installing approximately 5,400 feet of 18” sewer in order to change
the location where Upper Providence’s Doe Run Interceptor connects to the
Perkiomen Creek Interceptor between manholes P52 and PN38. This alternative
does not provide a complete solution for the provision of sewage conveyance but
may serve to reduce the flows within the Perkiomen Creek Interceptor and allow
use of smaller pipe sizes for the other alternatives.
They expect to issue a
report in mid-November indicating the costs for each. Some will be more
expensive due to anticipated construction difficulties such as placing new pipe
in steep slope areas, and some will be less; slip-lining options don’t allow
for additional needed capacity and are at best short-term solutions.
LPVRSA was going to
use an independent engineer (rather than its own engineer) to analyze options
and to solicit bid proposals, something DEP suggested, and LP supported, until
LP Chairman Rick Brown flatly rejected all options which would involve anything
going on the LP side of the creek, so it would be a waste of money for an
independent engineer to study a set of alternatives that did not include LP
options.
LP has been waging war
in the press for months, throwing anything and everything possible at the issue
in attempts to block or delay the construction, including:
·
Alleging
that the wording in the original Act 537 plan means that the interceptor must
be placed on the Upper Providence side of the river, when in actuality the
wording is vague enough to be construed either way. An accompanying map shows a
broad blue line traversing both sides
of the creek, and plans agreed upon by all member communities as early as
November 2004 have shown LP as the proposed location;
·
Threatening
to sue LPVRSA for a declaratory judgment (which, although the Times Herald has reported it has already been filed, it still
has not been initiated by LP)
·
claiming
an allegedly significant archeological find on the proposed site, which
supposedly triggers a detailed study and excavation of the site, and signaled
intent to petition to have the location added to the National Register of
Historic Places; LP also claims that they would not have granted easements for
the project had they known about the archeological finds sooner, but LPVRSA
records indicate that LP was regularly updated on such developments between
2005 and 2009; the easements were granted in 2009.
·
threatening
to try to have the easements granted to date vacated on the grounds that LP
allegedly wasn’t informed about said archeological artifacts; and
·
dragging
their feet on documentation required by state and federal officials.
LPVRSA’s position
Robert Feio, LPVRSA chairman and former supervisor in Upper Providence Township, says that they are “a
cooperative, working board. We implement requirements we are told to implement.
We are responsible for supporting economic development of the region and
environmental protection of the region.”
He estimated that approximately 35% of the 65,000 rate paying customers
across the 6 member municipalities are from LP.
LPVRSA takes issue
with LP’s proclivity to ‘sue first and ask questions later’ and for having an
‘our way or the highway’ attitude toward the other members. Given the various
ways LP has tried to derail the project, that attitude apparently also includes
a ‘pay for the interceptor the way we want it done, or pay dearly in legal
fees” mentality.
Earlier this year, the
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) indicated that it wants all of the
member townships of LPVRSA – Lower Providence, Upper Providence, Skippack,
Trappe, Collegeville and Perkiomenville -- to update their 537* plans, in part
to clear up any confusion as to the placement of the middle interceptor. My
understanding of the update process is that it also includes each municipality’s
engineer collecting the flow numbers based on current zoning and submits them
to LPVRSA, who gathers the data from the member municipalities and analyzes it
for inclusion in the overall plan.
While LP continues to
request that LPVRSA explore other options, LPVRSA says that they have, not
once, but twice (the second review at a cost of over $6,500 to LPVRSA) and have
arrived at a consensus with the other five members as to which alternative is
least costly and ensures the safe operation and stability of the system well
into the future.
LPVRSA’s analysis
makes it clear that what they call the "gravity option" (ie placement
of the interceptor on the LP side of the river without a pump station) is
cheaper than the plan LP originally preferred, the "LP Arcola Road
alternative" and it includes $100,000 earmarked for a site archeological
excavation which, by the way, would proceed at the same time as the
middle interceptor project. They can go around the existing wall on the site
(or under it). The pump station is noisy, disruptive and more expensive to
build and operate. LPVRSA estimates the cost of the LP-preferred option would
cost an additional $7.5 million in construction costs and approximately
$150,000 more in annual operating costs. Without giving a specific percentage,
it expected ratepayer bills to “significantly increase” as a result of the
additional costs if that option were to move forward.
Among the alternatives
looked at in the second review of options were the placement of four pump
station options, and two additional gravity options on the UP side of the
creek. The study concluded that pump station options would add anywhere from
$8M to $33M to construction costs (to be passed on to ratepayers via their
monthly bills) and gravity options would
add between $3M to $4M to the middle interceptor project costs, which is why
they selected the gravity option on the LP side. The placement of any pump station would be on
the Upper Providence side of the creek and impact at least one resident
directly. That resident, Frank and Patricia Stiefel, already have pipeline on
their property and the addition of a pump station and main may require the
condemnation of this resident’s home, built in 1930 and handed down through family. Officials in Upper Providence are aware
that the Stiefels are vehemently opposed to this option; calls to their
residence to speak to them were unreturned.
LPVRSA maintains that
it actually makes more environmental and archeological sense to go with the
gravity option, too, as the impact along the creek is less than with the other
options. They indicated that they would time construction so as not to
interfere with prime recreational periods when the waterway is in use.
I'm told the “LP Arcola Road alternative” option was
the previous option of choice for LP, which involved TWO creek crossings and a
pump station on the LP side of the creek.
LP claims DEP has
recommended this option, whereas LPVRSA stated in its “FAQs on the Perkiomen
Interceptor” that DEP walked the site and approved the location of the middle
interceptor as it was designed by LPVRSA’s engineer back in 2004 but has not
endorsed any particular option. LP is hanging its hat on the original plan
(with the vague language and broad blue line on the map) which DEP was asked to approve before LPVRSA spent considerable money to
design it.
LPVRSA feels that if
they’re going to do a pump station (something no engineer so far has come out
in support of), it may as well go on the UP side and run it next to the County
bike trail, which would be less expensive and less environmentally invasive
than the Arcola Road option. I believe that LP knows this, of course, which is
why offering the Arcola Road alternative as an option is disingenuous, at best.
Earlier this year,
Upper Providence proposed coming down their side of the creek an extra 200 feet
to avoid an alleged sacred Indian artifacts site, but LP’s response was that
the Army Corp of Engineers wouldn’t go for it because of the steep slope. UP’s
response was ‘let’s find out’. If the Indian site can be bypassed, there should
be no objection, right? Suddenly tactics were switched again and LP comes up
with a ‘bog turtle defense’.
Incidently, the same
tactic – an alleged bog turtle sighting - was attempted by opponents of the
construction of the pharmaceutical plants in Upper Providence a few years back.
They were proven false as the habitat was not one required by that species. My
understanding is that this is commonly attempted as turtles are easy to catch
and don’t go far once relocated. I’m not saying Ms. Beyer would do that – at
least, I hope not – but on this issue, in that area, we’ve more or less ‘been
there, done that’.
In July Skippack
proposed that LPVRSA provide $1 million in funds to mitigate the land
disturbance in LP caused by the installation of the interceptor across the back
yards of the 15 LP residents who’d be affected. So far, LP has not indicated if
they are receptive to that offer.
Unable to sustain
support for a pump station, the Arcola Road pump station option seems to have
fallen out of the favor of LP. They now
favor a “gravity option” called the “Doe Run” option which LPVRSA insists would
not only still require a pump station but would not provide the necessary increase
in capacity, thereby kicking the can down the road for about 5 years.
Where are we now? The Three-pronged Assault
The Legal Assault
A big part of the
current impasse appears to be the wording of the original Act 537 plan which
has been interpreted by five of the six member municipalities to mean the
interceptor will go on the Lower Providence side of the Perkiomen Creek, but
which LP has interpreted to mean it will run alongside the existing interceptor,
on the Upper Providence side. However, that option is physically impossible due
to the steep slopes on the Upper Providence side – LPVRSA insists there is
literally no room to place another pipe there alongside the existing one.
The DEP, rumored to be
under pressure from Senator John Rafferty (in turn under pressure from his
neighbors in the Cathy Beyer contingent), recognized a loophole that calls for
adequate time for public comment on any 537 planning. Given the dispute on placement of the middle
interceptor and given that LP planned on exploiting the public comment
provision to block construction of the interceptor, the DEP recommended that
537 planning be updated, thereby allowing for adequate time for public
comment.
For the sake of
efficiency of time and expense, LPVRSA volunteered to take the lead in updating
the 537; if each agreed, the supervisors or council of each member municipality
had to vote to permit that via resolution. To date, each of the members has –
except Lower Providence.
Lower Providence did
not want the municipalities to authorize LPVRSA to do this; they wanted each of
the 6 member townships to plan on their own. While this arguably makes no
economic or logistical sense, for Lower Providence, it would appear to really
be about trying to retain some control over the process, because they are at
odds with the rest of the members over where the interceptor should go.
I'm guessing that for
LP, the motive for slowing down the 537 plan update and opposing LPVRSA-led
planning it that is removes one avenue for potential lawsuit – a lawsuit which
they’ve already threatened—which lies in the allegedly "unclear"
verbiage in the existing plan about the interceptor running
"parallel" to an existing line---they know that LPVRSA will update
the plan to make this verbiage as specific as it needs to be.
The Emotional Assault
Enter Cathy Beyer. In May
this year, she and several of her family members attended a Board of
Supervisors meeting in Upper Providence; on the UP agenda was the vote to
authorize the LPVRSA to take the lead in coordinating the aforementioned DEP recommended 537
planning. Desperate to delay by any
means necessary, Beyer resorted to tears, hinting conspiracy by telling the UP
Board that there were alternatives to LPVRSA’s recommended interceptor that
they had not been made aware of and would they please delay the vote until
they attended a special meeting about the interceptor hosted by Lower
Providence? The Upper Providence board
agreed to put off the vote, but only until their next meeting two weeks later.
At that meeting, I’m
told that Lower Providence Board of Supervisors' chairman, Rick Brown, trotted
out standard strong-arm tactics - the 'iron fist in velvet gloves' approach -
to try to force a favorable decision for LP. While I can respect them trying to
get their own way, his tactics left something to be desired; Brown apparently
thought the other members were all so ignorant of the process and the issues
that LP could just BS their way through it. Needless to say, this attitude and
tactics were ineffective at best and went over like a lead balloon.
At a July DEP meeting,
LP tried to get State Rep. Mike Vereb and State Senator John Rafferty involved
to help move the stalemate toward resolution, but in early August, LPVRSA asked
them to ‘butt out’.
The Historical Assault
Seeing the handwriting
on the wall and preemptively looking for another roadblock, Brown, a mere two
days after Beyer's sobfest in Upper Providence, signaled intent to put
Operation Priceless Indian Artifacts into action by proposing that the area
where allegedly (and, conveniently) some arrowheads were found along LP's side
of the riverbed be submitted for consideration to be added to the National
Register of Historic Places.
If there isn't such a
thing as "historical terrorism', perhaps there should be. People have been
turning up Indian arrowheads for years on both sides of the Perkiomen
Creek; I'm told they were found when the original interceptor was installed. The Phase II archeological
study/Phase II work plan for the site recommended recovery of the
artifacts for ultimate public display, NOT to preserve the site on which they
were found. My understanding from the
study recommendations is that there is no value in preserving the artifacts
intact where they are.
LP claims that they
would never have granted the easements they did for this project had they known
that artifacts had been discovered, yet LPVRSA claims that LP’s representative
on LPVRSA was aware of the
Archaeological Survey Reports dated June 23, 2005, February 2009 and July 2009
and presumably their contents. LP granted the easements on August 24, 2009.
Current LP Board chair Rick Brown made the motion to authorize signing the
easements over.
Where do we go from here?
At this juncture, LP
holds almost all the cards and there is no incentive for them to play nicely.
There is no deadline to complete the 537, and if LP doesn’t update theirs on
their own or allow LPVRSA to do it for them, all that will happen is that DEP
will cap new hookups to the sewer system below a certain point – a point that
will affect all LPVRSA members except for LP (because 80% of the flow enters
below the point where LP hooks into the system) and stop all future development
in those communities.
LP could elect to exit
LPVRSA and just be a paying customer, but that would make no sense, because
then they’d have no voice on a board that can have an impact on their
community.
Selecting one of the
more costly options, and/or stopping the addition of new residents and
businesses to the system by the other 5 member communities, will certainly
result in increased rates for all 65,000 ratepayers.
Of course, not acting is an option too, but not
without consequence. If nothing is done and the hydraulics go beyond capacity
and overload (there are already problems with infiltration due to the age of
the system), DEP will issue a “Corrective Action Plan” (CAP) and a “Corrective
Management Plan” (CMP) whereby LPVRSA would have to enter into a consent
agreement with DEP and they then take responsibility for selecting and driving
a solution…and that may be one that LP likes even less.
While the LP Board of
Supervisors has waged their battle against the middle interceptor within the
confines of their political power in both the courtroom and the media, Cathy
Beyer has led an all-out assault on the integrity of LPVRSA and the character
of the LPVRSA Board members in traditional and social media. Using blatant emotional appeals, heavy-handed
syrupy online slide shows and shameless character smears, Cathy Beyer implies
that construction of the middle interceptor is motivated by the evil intentions
of the LPVRSA board who would love nothing more than to assault the environment
for their own personal pleasure.
Is it possible that
Lower Providence Township and Cathy Beyer, et al just care about the environment
so much that they will resort to anything to win? Is it possible that LPVRSA and those that
work for it are as evil as they have been portrayed?
Or is it more possible
that the LP Board found a relatively easy issue to champion as “defender of the
environment”, via a resident willing to play useful pawn, that would earn them
the undying love and political support from a certain constituency even beyond
those that live on the creek while providing them a nice opaque cover for
gaining political payback against enemies of the past?
Is it possible that
the emotional histrionics on display are motivated more by a “not in my
backyard” mentality of someone who once wanted to capitalize on that bucolic
asset for her own personal monetary gain?
Is it possible that
these people may be motivated by something other than a pure love of the environment
or a reverence for history?
Is it possible that
the men and women of the LPVRSA are not evil mustachioed enviro-pirates, but
ordinary people looking for the best solutions to a thorny problem?
Is it possible that
the only winners in this battle have been the lawyers for both sides, whose
legal fees SO FAR have been placed somewhere in the tens of thousands of
dollars?
I leave it to you to
decide whether we live in a storyland---or the real world.
EPILOGUE
The emotional assault
continued this past Thursday evening, Oct. 18, in yet another pitch which
appeared to be staged and facilitated by LP for the cameras taping the meeting
for broadcast to LP residents in LP’s and/or Beyer’s continuing apparent quest
to win in the court of public opinion. Ms. Beyer and her sister, Mary Kaczor,
again appeared before our Board of Supervisors to give their propaganda
version of the timeline and history of events in this matter as depicted on a
PowerPoint presentation replete with harp music playing in the background.
Also in attendance at
the meeting were two of Upper Providence Township’s three supervisors, and
their engineer, as well as a handful of residents from Upper Providence.
While an online
article by the LP Patch about this meeting appeared to ‘walk back’ the severity
of some of these comments, the fact is that many bold accusations were made and
character assassinations tossed around, some of which may be actionable by
those individuals Ms. Beyer and her sister, Mary Kaczor, negatively spoke
about.
Among the assertions
were that the Attorney General should investigate LPVRSA; however, LP Township
minutes of July 1, 2010 contain a statement by Ms. Beyer that “The residents in
opposition have contacted the Attorney General’s Office, who is investigating
this matter”. Since nothing has ever come to light about such an investigation,
I can only conclude without looking into
it further that either nothing of note was found, or the AG’s office declined
to investigate.
Also asserted at the
Oct. 18 presentation were that Beyer and Kaczor lost their legal fight against
the condemnation of their property due to a technicality instead of the merits
of the case. Ms. Beyer stated her
belief in a possible conspiracy between her attorney, whom she maintains is a
former associate of LPVRSA’s counsel, and LPVRSA. However a review of the
docket in those cases revealed that they
were not ruled in their favor in two separate 2010 decisions (merged for
appellate review) because, “…in light of Condemnees’ failure to provide the
trial court with any legal authority to support their apparent contention that
the Declarations [of condemnation] must comport with either a current or
proposed Act 537 Plan, the undersigned is not persuaded of any adverse impact
which such a Plan might have upon the validity of the Condemnor’s Declarations”
and “As demonstrated, the Authority [LPVRSA] fulfilled its statutory
obligations and any contention by the Condemnees that the Declarations do not
comport with current Act 537 Plan is insufficient to negate the legality of
those Declarations.” The decision and order of the trial court was affirmed on
appeal in 2011. In other words, she lost on the merits. If she should have plead anything else in her filings, she did not despite ample opportunity to amend her pleadings.
Ms. Beyer also made
note of the fact that she’d received her condemnation notice two days before
Christmas, 2009, which is true. LPVRSA admits on reflection that the timing of
the notices was not ideal, but Ms. Beyer had been contacted several times prior
to the condemnation notice, and plans for the middle interceptor were public
knowledge to the residents since approximately June 2005 when a letter was sent
to affected residents on Arcola Road, including Beyer, indicating that the
proposed interceptor was being planned and that it “may not be on the same side
of the creek as the existing interceptor.”
One prior notice, a
Notice of Intent to Enter Property (for surveying and studies to be conducted),
was sent by LPVRSA on December 2, 2008 via certified mail and signed for by Ms.
Beyer on 12/3/08. She did not respond.
A second notice
requesting easements for the middle interceptor and offering a fixed amount of
compensation for the easement was mailed to Ms. Beyer (and other affected
residents) in July 2009. The letter
indicated if the resident had questions, to please call, and I’m told Ms. Beyer
did. At her request a meeting was set up and LPVRSA representatives met with
her on August 29, 2009. They walked the property, and Ms. Beyer indicated her
concern about a possibly historically significant wall and LPVRSA maintains
they told her they could avoid it by going around it; however that would
require an additional easement. According to LPVRSA, Ms. Beyer then indicated
she would want additional compensation, so LPVRSA told her to get an appraisal
for the additional easement so they could determine a fair amount. LPVRSA never
heard from her after that, so the December “Christmas condemnation letter”
followed.
Additionally, a letter
to the editor of the Times Herald appeared last week from Ms. Beyer about this
issue. She signed it as though she were representing the Perkiomen Watershed
Conservancy; however, someone affiliated with that group who wanted to remain
anonymous told me that they were “not happy about the letter, and steps will be
taken to assure that it is clear that she does not represent them” and this
individual also presumed that she would be hearing from their attorney. Soon
afterward a disclaimer from them appeared under the online version of the
letter. I’m not authorized to speak for
them either, but my impression is that the Conservancy
would not take a position opposing the sewer line because in the larger picture
it will improve water quality by eliminating sources of untreated sewage
entering the watershed.
In summary, it would
appear that Beyer and LP are engaging in a “kitchen sink offense” … throwing
anything and everything at the issue to create confusion, sympathy, anger, etc,
and I personally believe most of it is pure BS on the part of yet another NIMBY
faction whose legal concerns LP is only too happy to take up. Remember that when tough budget cuts are being made and/or your taxes are increased in a few weeks when LP's 2013 budget is finalized.
In Ms. Beyer’s own
words, words with which I couldn’t agree more: something stinks, and it’s not necessarily sewage.
*The Act 537 Program
On January 24, 1966, the Pennsylvania Sewage Facilities Act (Act 537, as
amended) was enacted to correct existing sewage disposal problems and prevent
future problems. To meet this objective, the Act requires proper planning in
all types of sewage disposal situations. Local municipalities are largely
responsible for administering the Act 537 sewage facilities program. To assist
local municipalities in fulfilling this responsibility, the DEP provides
technical assistance, financial assistance, and oversight.
The Planning Process Municipalities are required to develop and
implement comprehensive official plans that provide for the resolution of
existing sewage disposal problems, provide for the future sewage disposal needs
of new land development; and provide for future sewage disposal needs of the
municipality. This official plan is sometimes called the "base" plan
or the "Act 537 plan." When a new land development project is
proposed, municipalities are required to revise their official plan (unless the
project is exempt from planning).
LP’s bicentennial tagline, and the theme around which they redesigned their emblem back in 2005, was ‘Bridge to the Future”. However, a landmark bridge over the Perkiomen, near where the Skippack Creek flows into it, referred to as the “Arcola Road bridge”, will soon become a bridge to nowhere, and there’s no easy, fast or inexpensive fix in sight. 
A county-owned bridge originally built in 1869 and replaced in 1931, the 258’ (total length), 20-foot wide bridge (also known as the “Cider Mill Road bridge”) handles more than 8,900 cars a day, according to Leo Bagley, transportation planner and assistant director of the Montgomery County Planning Commission. 
Originally engineered to withstand 40 tons of weight, the County's website still lists the Arcola Road Bridge at a 12 ton weight limit. However this past spring, Montgomery County’s Dept. of Roads and Bridges reduced the weight limitations on the Arcola Road Bridge twice, from 12 tons to 6, and then from 6 tons to 3 tons weigh capacity, so it’s now restricted to allow vehicles weighing no more than 3 tons to cross. In 2010 it was given a structural appraisal of ‘structurally deficient” and a deck rating of ‘poor’.
