Home News Tribune October 3, 2005
Agency official defends projects as money savers
By KEN TARBOUSRatepayers of the Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority will see a dramatic hike in the cost of sewer service as average yearly rates rise by an estimated $150 by 2008, according to the man in charge of the authority's daily operations.
The average rates are expected to go from about $100 this year to nearly $250 per year by 2008, said Executive Director Richard P. Tokarski. Rates will remain in line with those paid at other sewage authorities, he said.
About 95 percent of the $230 million expenditure for the authority's capital-improvement projects is meant to satisfy the requirements of an October 2001 settlement of a lawsuit brought by state Department of Environmental Protection.
Tokarski said the projects are the right thing to do, regardless of the lawsuit.
“As a settlement, we agreed to do certain things rather than go through (the legal process) and potentially having a much more costly settlement,” he added.
More than 300,000 residents and businesses in 14 municipalities in Middlesex and Union counties get their sewer service for the authority.
In 1998, the state DEP sued the authority over the sewage system and its discharge the state said was being released into the Rahway River during times of heavy rainfall.
“It was a technicality,” Tokarski said.
The upgrades and new construction at the authority's wastewater-treatment plant in Rahway fall into three projects.
The eight-year Comprehensive Strategic Plan, at a cost of nearly $190 million, will bring the authority into compliance with the lawsuit's Judicial Consent Order, Tokarski said.
The work will increase the plant's capacity to handle waste water from about 63 million gallons to 105 million gallons per day, close the combined sewer overflows that spill into the river, upgrade the facility's overall system, and address other elements of the process, Tokarski said. The normal flow is 23 million gallons to 30 million gallons per day.
The $25 million Cogeneration/Sludge Drying project will reduce the volume of sludge, waste product left over after treatment, by about 80 percent, Michael J. Brinker Jr., the plant's chief engineer, said.
The sludge-disposal savings will be about $1 million per year, according to authority estimates.
The treatment facility will use methane produced in the drying process to run equipment, reducing the need to buy energy from outside sources, and maybe one day producing enough power to sell in the wholesale energy market, Tokarski said.
By utilizing the waste heat, it makes the process economically sound,'' he said.
But with the construction still under way and the quickly changing energy prices, Tokarski said he was unable to estimate how much money the authority might save by generating its own electricity or take in from selling any excess.
“It's a total guess,” he said.
Major upgrades to other portions of the treatment plant and process, the third project, carry an $11 million price tag.
Engineering and other project costs add about another $4 million to tab, Tokarski said.
And the authority must meet the scheduled completion date in mid-2009 while continuing 24-hour, seven-day-a-week treatment-plant operations, Tokarski said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is closely monitoring the progress of the work.
“This massive project is going well, it's on schedule, and the authority is in compliance,” DEP spokesman Fred Mumford said. “This is going to improve the handling of the high flows during rainstorms, and that will protect the area waterways so you won't have raw sewage mixing with rainwater and being discharged.''
Some of the loans for the project come from the Environmental Infrastructure Trust, which provides low-interest funding for projects with water-quality components, Mumford said.
Clark, Cranford, Garwood, Kenilworth, Mountainside, Rahway, Roselle Park, Scotch Plains, Springfield, Westfield, Winfield Park and Woodbridge, and parts of Linden and Fanwood are served by the authority.
The project is scheduled to be completed by 2009.
