ALLENTOWN – Members of the Allentown Borough Council have authorized the borough’s engineer to investigate how non-waste water is entering the town’s waste water system and to reduce the source of that infiltration.
According to a resolution passed by the council on Nov. 28, the Utilities Committee has directed Roberts Engineering Group, LLC, to investigate and quantify the inflow/infiltration into the sanitary sewage collection system.
Mayor Greg Westfall said Allentown’s waste water treatment plant “is monitored for both water quantity and quality. It has been determined during wet periods that the flow increases.
“Our waste water and storm water systems are separate and therefore the excess water is not coming from direct storm water runoff as occurs in older municipalities with combined sewer and storm water systems.
“As a result, a determination has been made that non-waste water is potentially entering the waste water system via infiltration/inflow through the waste water collection system.
“The purpose of this examination (by Roberts Engineering) will be to determine where the infiltration is occurring and to ultimately reduce this source of non-waste water entering our system,” Westfall said.
Roberts Engineering has identified a three-phase plan to investigate and quantify the inflow/infiltration into the sanitary sewage collection system and has designed phase I to include a walk-through of the sanitary sewers in easements to determine if any manholes and castings have been disturbed and evaluate if they are a source of inflow/infiltration, according to the resolution.
Roberts Engineering will review waste water treatment plant flow data so a comparison can be made between rain events to plant flow, according to the resolution. The council has capped the payment for the phase I work at an amount not to exceed $4,500.