ACHD Sets Consent Agreement with Bell Acres on Sewage Project

The Bell Acres Municipal Authority has entered into an agreement with the Allegheny County Health Department to improve sewage treatment in the borough.

Council Vice President David Renfrew, municipal authority chairman, said Monday the health department set the consent agreement to begin on Feb. 1, which started the clock on a list of priority measures that have to be completed during the next two months.

"We're moving toward it," Renfrew said.

is under a consent order to address its four aging sewage treatment plants. 

As part of the agreement, the borough’s four sewage plants will be replaced with pump stations, a multi-million dollar project that isn’t expected to begin until later this year.

Renfrew said sewage would be centralized and sent to instead of the four plants.

The process will involve taking the four plants off and running a line from Borough to Camp Meeting Road on down to Quaker Heights in . From there, the connection in Leet would carry the sewage to Leetsdale’s plant.

Renfrew said the overall project isn’t expected to be complete until 2014.

“There’s a lot of permitting and planning that has to go on,” Renfrew previously said.

The project requires updating the borough’s 530 plan and working with the state Department of Environmental Protection and the county to get the project in order.

Renfrew said the borough will have to float a municipal bond issue through a local bank to pay for the cost of the overall project.

Bell Acres previously applied for a low-interest loan and funding through PennVest funding as well as an H2O grant but was turned down, Renfrew said.