The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
The Franklin Township Sewerage Authority is rushing to fix what could become a major problem in the northwest portion of the township.
A sewer line break on January 15 along Weston Canal Road turned out to be a portent for more trouble with that line, Authority interim Executive Director Joe Danielsen told the commission members.
The break was patched, he said, but the contractor who did the work “said this was going to be one of probably many breaks in the line.”
“The line was inspected, we are now beyond repair, in an emergency situation,” Danielsen said. “There will be more breaks in this line.”
Danielsen said the project to rehabilitate the 3,000-linear-foot line could cost between $2.2 million and $2.6 million.
The money, he said, will come from the Authority’s North Track account, which currently has about $3.7 million in it.
The North Track account is so called because it was created through a developer’s agreement requiring that any developer working in an area of the township known as the North Track contribute to a fund to maintain sewer lines.
Rehabilitating the line may involve several different methods, Danielsen said. He said the eventual contractor will have to decide that in consultation with Authority professionals.
The work is awaiting administrative manager Apryl L. Roach’s concurrence that an emergency exits, after which Danielsen and operations manager Scott Nocero will “decide on the vendor and how to engage the vendors to do this,” Danielsen said.
“We can’t waste a single day in this process,” Danielsen said. “A failure to act could result in a minimum of fines from (NJ Department of Environmental Protection), or worse.
“What we don’t’ have is time,” he said. “This should have been done years ago. We didn’t know it at the time. We have to rush, and we don’t have the luxury of going through the normal public bidding process.”
