Canonsburg council discusses sewer system report
Canonsburg has completed a preliminary assessment of its sanitary sewer system, giving it a far greater understanding of its owned assets, according to Borough Manager Jennifer Foster.
The Canonsburg Borough Council discussed the preliminary report presented by borough engineer RVE last week, and is considering authorizing an expanded second study phase that would give even greater clarity.
According to Canonsburg Borough Engineer Dominick Falcone, who presented the report alongside his RVE colleague Michael Meyer, this type of report represents a survey of a municipality’s sanitary sewer system.
This includes the total length and dimension of installed pipe; pipe material; pipe age and condition; and any above-ground access points such as manhole covers, he said.
Canonsburg is party to the Canonsburg-Houston Joint Authority (CHJA), which manages larger sewer assets such as the Curry Hill Road wastewater treatment plant separately from the borough’s sewer assets and oversees its own independent billing and maintenance plan.
The authority’s assets were not assessed during RVE’s preliminary survey.
This preliminary study relied on “a lot of assumptions” and documents retained from previous sewer line replacement projects to generate the final valuation, Falcone said.
Using this methodology, RVE estimates that the borough currently possesses between $22 million and $31 million worth of sewer assets.
Under Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) law, municipalities that are exploring a potential sale of a public utility asset to another party are entitled to apply a 1.59-times multiplier to this initial valuation, leading to an effective fair market value of $35 million to $49 million.
Meyer emphasized that the data and subsequent valuation included in the preliminary report is not definitive, and RVE can only provide a complete picture with further in-person assessment of the system.
Falcone said if the borough was interested in proceeding toward a sale of its sewer assets, RVE would need to complete a far larger phase II study to generate a formal final valuation.
The second phase would cost the borough between $30,000 and $40,000 and take three to four months of fieldwork, he said. RVE would then physically inspect a majority of the system using staff surveyors and high-tech camera equipment to produce a detailed final report and valuation that can be presented to the PUC.
The PUC must approve any formal final valuation reports before a municipality is allowed to solicit potential buyers for its asset, Falcone said.
Foster said the borough is not looking to sell its sanitary sewer system at this time, and that the preliminary valuation report is a “fact finding” effort in order to better understand its current assets.
The future of the system is “something that is being discussed,” but any final decision will be made after reviewing the second phase report, she said.
Borough council did not authorize the second phase report during its October regular meeting.