Center of Everything: Hazleton sewer, water officials prepare for growth

Mar. 9—In some ways, local water and sewer authorities are the gateway for development in Greater Hazleton.

Those entities are often among the first stops for prospective developers as they factor water supply and sewage capacity into costs of building locally, said Randy Cahalan, director of operations for Hazleton City Authority.

The authority has been able to meet the needs of a growing customer base since its filtration plant was built in 1993, but a more recent uptick in development — particularly a bottled beverage manufacturing facility eyed for Hazle Twp. — has officials searching for new water sources and considering whether they should expand the filtration plant and increase daily output by millions of gallons per day.

"Since the plant was built almost 30 years ago, there's been very little increase in usage," Cahalan said. "We didn't have that many facilities come to us other than just small places. We didn't have these big companies come to us. Now, it's looking like things are kind of exploding in this area. We are certainly concerned."

Officials at Greater Hazleton Joint Sewer Authority, meanwhile, are taking on the costly task of stopping stormwater from infiltrating collection systems, a process that essentially reduces the volume of intake at its treatment plant in Valmont Industrial Park and potentially opens the door for development, Operations Manager Greg Olander said.

"As far as our treatment plant, I think we've done a pretty good job for long-term planning," Olander said. "I think capacity-wise at our plant and capacity of our pump stations, we are in a very good position to handle it."

Tracking projects

In most cases, developers themselves or their engineers will inquire about water service as they consider buying property, Cahalan said.

Developers who seek approval from local zoning and planning commissions must also submit paperwork that confirms the authority is capable of providing water service.

A similar process applies to the sewer authority, which allocates service based on a measurement known as EDUs, or equivalent dwelling units, Olander said.

"Usually, they need a letter from us that we have capacity to serve the project," Olander said. "In some cases, we can give that letter. In some cases, if there's very high flow (or) if we don't have enough EDUs, we don't have to give a letter."

Cahalan reported the latest inquiry HCA received in January, when he told its board of directors that Site Services Group pitched 1 million square feet of warehousing on land east of HCA's reservoir and filtration plant on Arthur Gardner Parkway in Hazleton.

The project would extend east toward New Coxeville and would require relocating raw water lines that extend from the HCA's plant and reservoir.

"They were asking if those lines could be relocated from that property," Cahalan said. "We told them, 'Definitely.' It would all be at their expense."

Keeping the tap running

Not all large-scale developments consume large quantities of water, he said. In some cases, it's more difficult to gauge consumption because developers build them for speculative purposes without a specific tenant in mind.

"Even though there's a 1 million square foot building going in, there could be very little water usage there," he said. "It's really just warehouses. Other than bathrooms, a lot of them don't have much use for water."

One proposed development, meanwhile, has raised some eyebrows and helped fuel efforts to identify new sources of water.

"This new facility coming, the bottling company, they're asking for a large amount of water," Cahalan said. "That's really producing a lot of concern."

Cahalan stopped short of naming a specific project, but Warrior Trail secured consumptive use approval from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission in October 2020 for using as much as 1.4 million gallons of water per day for a bottled beverage manufacturing facility it wants to build in Humboldt Industrial Park Northwest, Hazle Twp.

A few months prior, the HCA applied to the state Department of Environmental Protection and Delaware River Basin Commission for doubling the daily allotment of water it draws from Lehigh River to 5 million gallons per day.

The DRBC could rule on that request this month.

The authority typically negotiates rates and could ask for an up-front payment from a large developer to offset the costs of providing that water, he said.

"If you get additional customers, you have to get additional raw water and additional sources to provide that water," he said. "Then you have to get it to the plant. Additional pipelines and pump stations have to be built to get it here. All of those sources are in the surrounding area because Hazleton, of course, is on top of the mountain. Then, you have to treat it and have the capacity at the plant. All of those things have to go into the equation to provide more water."

Looking ahead

In January, the HCA board voted to advertise for proposals from engineering firms that would study and identify new water sources and capital improvements for demand over the next 10 years.

A $150,000 grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development will help pay for that study.

When it was built, the filtration plant was rated at 10 million gallons per day, but was designed so that it could expand and increase daily output.

Officials discussed possibly boosting output to 12.5 million gallons per day.

The authority currently receives water from 13 sources, such as reservoirs, wells and streams.

In addition to evaluating how the authority can add to its sources of raw water, the study will consider HCA's ability to get that water to its filtration plant and upgrades that would ensure the plant can handle increased capacity over the next decade.

Although work remains, Cahalan said the authority is excited for the potential.

"The area seems to be growing," he said. "Hopefully, that's an advantage to everybody."

The authority serves some 15,200 customers in parts of Luzerne, Schuylkill and Carbon counties.

Sewage capacity

The sewer authority has a more complex process for evaluating hydraulic capacity at its treatment plant, Olander said.

In the mid-2000s, the plant was projected to be "hydraulically overloaded," prompting state environmental officials to determine that much of the flow coming to the treatment plant was ground or storm water, he said.

Rather than increasing the size of the plant, the authority instead worked with the state to remove groundwater from the collection system.

"I guess the thought was, if we remove the water, we don't have to increase the size of the plant," Olander said.

At the time, the authority did not own the collection systems for the municipalities that it serves. Those communities were tasked with developing plans for addressing those aged collection systems and ultimately reducing storm water flow, he said.

Those plans were developed between 2009 and 2011, around the time the authority upgraded its plant to comply with pollution controls for the Chesapeake Bay.

With those improvements in place, the authority asked state environmental officials to "re-rate" the hydraulic capacity of its treatment plant, which was set at 13.35 million gallons per day.

To determine whether the plant is near capacity, officials use a calculation based on the highest flow recorded over three consecutive months in a year, he said.

The average was tallied at 9.64 million gallons per day in 2019 and 8.73 million gallons per day in 2020, well below capacity.

When state environmental officials approved the corrective action plans, they gave an allotment of EDUs to Hazleton, West Hazleton and Hazle Twp., which can be granted for development in exchange for storm water that had been removed from the system, Olander said.

By 2013, the sewer authority took over sanitary collection systems for Hazleton and West Hazleton and subsequently inherited corrective action plans that include work to separate sanitary and storm water lines.

In order for those communities to get more EDUs for development, the authority must continue to remove storm water, Olander said.

In January 2019, the authority completed a $3.5 million project that stopped the waters of Hazle Creek from flowing to the treatment plant, Olander said. Flow meters at the plant indicate the project reduced flow to the plant by about 690,000 gallons per day, he said

That project alone will help make room for future development, he said.

Clearing the way

The sewer authority is familiar with Blue Creek Investments' plans for developing land near Arthur Gardner Parkway and Route 309 in Hazleton and secured conditional approval from the state for a high-volume water user to locate at that site.

The high-volume user is no longer eyed for that site and the planning module has since been rescinded, Olander said. That process should make those EDUs available for a different project, he said.

An engineer for the sewer authority submitted a report to state environmental officials that will help determine whether that agency can issue EDUs to Hazleton Creek Commerce Center Holdings, which plans to build five massive buildings on mine land near South Church and Buttonwood streets in Hazleton.

The state has since issued 1,000 EDUs for development within the sewer authority's service area. The sewer authority board will decide later this month whether to dedicate 435 of those EDUs for the Hazleton Creek Commerce project, Olander said.

The authority will continue following corrective action plans for the collection systems, as it applied for a gaming grant to help pay an estimated $6 million project that would separate sewage and storm water lines at a pumping station on Locust Street, near Beech Street Playground in Hazleton.

When that work is complete, another combined storm and sanitary line will be removed from the sewage collection system and the authority can again position itself "to take capacity back" for development.

"Any flow that we remove from the system is an allocation that we'll get back from DEP," he said. "We've been taking out ground water, roof drains, taking out the storm sewer inlets on the corners (and) all that rain. If it's contaminated (with sewage) we have to capture that and treat it. Our goal is to ... get back that capacity."

Contact the writer: sgalski@standardspeaker.com; 570-501-3586