CHJA rate increase case going back to court next month
A Washington County judge, in a 21-page memorandum and order filed Thursday, found the attorneys for Chartiers Township had enough reason to try to stop a rate increase by the Canonsburg-Houston Joint Sewer Authority, and he scheduled another hearing for next month.
Judge Michael Lucas, just days before the rate increase was scheduled to take effect July 1, issued a temporary injunction that kept the rate from more than doubling for 16,000 customers.
Chartiers and its allies, Cecil and North Strabane townships and their municipal authorities, known as “intervenors” in the suit, are to be in court again the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 14, against CHJA.
The joint authority wants to raise its base charge of $5.38 per 1,000 gallons to $11.57. Romel L. Nicholas of Pittsburgh, lead attorney for the townships, last summer called the rate increase “off the charts.”
Attorney Steven Toprani, representing the joint authority, had argued in court that the townships had been informed of the impending rate increase well before the time allotted by law for the new rates to take effect.
Lucas noted Chartiers, in objecting to a rate increase, claimed the joint authority did not provide sufficient basis for its actions and alleged the authority increased project costs for system upgrades by $20 million without going through a bidding process.
Lucas sustained the joint authority’s objections to other matters raised by Chartiers but concluded the three townships are carrying out a key role of local government: “to promote and protect life’s quality for all of its inhabitants” and “have a substantial interest in the safe and effective provision of sanitary sewage treatment for their residents.”
The sewer authority is seeking to increase flow capacity, eliminate bacterial contamination, upgrade lines and double its wet-weather pump station capacity.
Its sewage-treatment plant along Chartiers Creek between Southpointe II and Morganza Road is more than 50 years old, built when the surrounding communities were mostly farmland.