Before
THE TOBYHANNA TOWNSHIP PLANNING COMMISSION
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In Re: Regular Business Meeting
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Tobyhanna Township Government Center Building
State Avenue
Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania 18350
Thursday, April 8, 2010, beginning at 7 p.m.
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PRESENT: MARK SINCAVAGE, Chairperson
JOSEPH MILLER, Vice-Chairperson
ROBERT BAXTER, Board Member
ANNE LAMBERTON, Board Member
PATRICIA M. RINEHIMER, Board Member
ROBERT McHALE, P.E.,
Township Engineer
PATRICK ARMSTRONG, ESQUIRE, Solicitor
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Panko Reporting
537 Sarah Street, 2nd Floor
Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania 18360
(570) 421-3620
2
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: I'll call the
2 regularly scheduled meeting of the Tobyhanna
3 Township Planning Commission for April 8, 2010 to
4 order. The first item on our agenda will be
5 approval of the January 14th, 2010 minutes. Do I
6 have a motion?
7 MR. MILLER: I'll make a motion.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: I have a motion
9 to approve. Do I have a second to the motion?
10 MRS. LAMBERTON: I'll second.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion and
12 second. All those in favor please say aye.
13 MR. MILLER: Aye.
14 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
15 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: I'll abstain.
17 Next item is approval of the
18 February 4, 2010 minutes. Do I have a motion to
19 approve?
20 MR. MILLER: So moved.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion. Second
22 to the motion?
23 MRS. LAMBERTON: Second. All
24 those in favor please say aye.
25 MR. MILLER: Aye.
3
1 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
2 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
4 Under old business we have Wee
5 Wons Day Care. Pat, did you have anything you
6 wanted to say about these?
7 MR. ARMSTRONG: No. The same,
8 both Wee Wons and Locust Ridge, under old business,
9 nothing new to my knowledge. We have those open
10 ended extensions. Both applicants are considering
11 what they are going to do with their plans before
12 moving forward.
13 MR. SINCAVAGE: Okay. So I'll
14 entertain a motion to table Wee Wons Day Care
15 Pre/Final Land Development Plan.
16 MR. MILLER: So moved.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: Second?
18 MRS. LAMBERTON: Second.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: All those in
20 favor please say aye.
21 MR. MILLER: Aye.
22 MR. BAXTER: Aye.
23 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
24 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
4
1 Locust Ridge Quarry 940 Shop
2 Preliminary Land Development Plan. Do I have a
3 motion to table?
4 MR. BAXTER: So moved.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: Do I have a
6 second to the motion?
7 MRS. LAMBERTON: Second.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: Motion and
9 second. All those in favor please say aye.
10 MR. BAXTER: Aye.
11 MRS. LAMBERTON: Aye.
12 MR. MILLER: Aye.
13 MS. RINEHIMER: Aye.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: Aye.
15 Next item is the Act 537
16 Amendment for Arrowhead Lakes Development. Bob,
17 I'll let you run this one.
18 MR. McHALE: There is a couple
19 pieces of correspondence in front of you that I
20 want to bring your attention to. One is the April
21 24th letter from the department of environmental
22 protection and it's April 24th of '09. And if you
23 turn to the second page, the second paragraph, you
24 will see kind of where we are at. If you take a
25 minute and kind of refamiliarize yourself. You may
5
1 have seen this in an email many months ago, but
2 it's essentially that the DEP is explaining the
3 situation that Arrowhead Lakes is in and that there
4 was Sections 1 through 13 -- it says, it appears
5 that a major portion of these extensions, the sewer
6 extensions do not have proper 537 planning
7 approvals nor did they obtain department water
8 quality management permits. And then they go on to
9 state that they should have the permits before any
10 permits, building permits are issued.
11 Then the second portion, the
12 next paragraph down, that's what they are actually
13 doing right now, is the reconstruct of the 537
14 plan. A lot of these -- Mark, if you want to flip
15 over to, I think it's figure 3 or 4, it will
16 show -- right there. Those are, in green, the
17 permitted, in the upper left and the upper right
18 sections of the development. The waste water
19 treatment facilities by the Lehigh River and all
20 those lines had proper planning and permitting.
21 All the ones that are in the red color around the
22 lake, those do not have proper planning and
23 permitting.
24 MR. SINCAVAGE: When were they
25 put in, Bob?
6
1 MR. McHALE: I believe a couple
2 years ago.
3 MR. BAXTER: They just did it.
4 MR. McHALE: Well, as we
5 understand, there were several letters that were
6 written. The township had done some research in
7 our files and we couldn't locate any of the
8 planning for some of the connections that were
9 being requested to be made. And there were a few
10 that were made, I guess, in our township, but then
11 we wrote a letter to DEP and asked them for a look
12 at their files to see what they could come up with
13 and we also checked Coolbaugh Township, nobody was
14 coming up with any plans.
15 And then I guess Arrowhead Lakes
16 had written a letter after that and that's when DEP
17 did a composite back to all the townships, both
18 Coolbaugh and Tobyhanna and to Arrowhead Lakes
19 Community Association describing what they did or
20 did not find in their files. So that's how they
21 got to that point.
22 Then Princeton Hydro was hired
23 by Arrowhead Sewer Company, I believe, and that's a
24 letter of February 19th of 2010 that you have in
25 front of you also. And what they are looking from
7
1 the township, it kind of goes through a little
2 sequence of here's how they anticipate the review
3 procedure to proceed and they list the items, and
4 the third item down is after the township
5 informally approves the special study, they submit
6 to the county planning board for review and
7 approval.
8 So we are kind of in that phase
9 right now where we are looking at it, going to get
10 them their initial review comments back. So any
11 comment you have tonight will integrate into what
12 the staff has already kind of begun to look at,
13 which we provided a checklist, which that checklist
14 is what you use when you're developing Act 537
15 planning. We also had some discussions, a couple
16 of discussions with DEP, as well as a meeting
17 sometime ago regarding what needs to be included or
18 not included. So with that, I think there is a
19 letter.
20 MR. BAXTER: Do we all have this
21 map in our package?
22 MR. McHALE: It's in the
23 booklet. They've provided us a couple of booklets
24 and --
25 MR. BAXTER: We have this
8
1 electronically?
2 MR. McHALE: Right. We have
3 access to it on their website. It was so large, it
4 couldn't load easily.
5 MRS. LAMBERTON: I think they
6 pulled it.
7 MR. McHALE: They dropped it,
8 but we asked them to put it back on a few more
9 weeks until we had a chance to go through it again.
10 Just to try to summarize what
11 the special study is about is, not just the
12 planning portion of it, but the way they have gone
13 through this study and the situation that Arrowhead
14 was in, that there was a number of contracts that
15 were signed by some of the lot owners. Mark, if
16 you flip back to the other map there for a minute,
17 please. And I believe it was a number of about 30
18 that they already had contracts with folks that own
19 properties to make the connections to the force
20 main or to the system that's already in place out
21 there.
22 There was a number of others
23 that were -- I don't want to say promised, but at
24 least they were aware that they could make those
25 connections, but no contracts were actually signed
9
1 or executed. So the DEP said to Arrowhead that
2 they can go ahead and honor those contracts, but
3 they are going to have a hybrid system, if you
4 will, and that's what this is about. All the lots
5 in Arrowhead will need to exhaust basically the
6 opportunities of using the land based, normal
7 on-lot sewage disposal system, and if they can put
8 a system like that new on their property they will
9 be allowed to do that and that's what they wanted
10 to move forward doing. They won't -- even if the
11 line is right in front of their house they won't be
12 allowed to connect. They will have to go through
13 that procedure to see if they can use the land
14 based application. If they cannot, then they will
15 allow them to connect. If they have to
16 rehabilitate or if there was a problem with their
17 system and they needed to find another location on
18 their site, then that's what they wanted them to do
19 before they would connect also. They want them to
20 exhaust all possibilities or most possibilities,
21 let me put it that way, of land based application
22 before they allow a connection.
23 MR. SINCAVAGE: And that
24 includes the drip irrigation, from what I saw in
25 the notes.
10
1 MR. McHALE: That is correct.
2 Now, ther is -- we'll get into that in a minute,
3 but some of the mapping we'll see, as we scroll
4 through it and maybe what we'll do is let's scroll
5 through the maps kind of quickly and just see what
6 the maps are showing, these basic figures.
7 The first one -- that's Figure
8 4. If we can scroll back a couple more to Figure
9 1, please. We'll start there and we'll work our
10 way through it. There is also a couple hard copies
11 as well if the screening is difficult to read. The
12 first figure is just the location map showing where
13 the special study area is. The second figure is
14 the site map. And, again, they are just outlining
15 where the treatment facility is, which is in this,
16 the upper left hand corner. And the lighter shaded
17 yellow is basically the system that was already
18 approved. Now, they have -- they have unapproved
19 system in both Coolbaugh and Tobyhanna. So they
20 have to work through doing the special study.
21 Figure 3 we had just seen a few
22 minutes ago. Figure 4 is showing a service area
23 that's already in place for their -- the welcome
24 center is out front, but then they have other
25 connections that were made as well.
11
1 MRS. LAMBERTON: That will
2 affect them coming in at the welcome center.
3 MR. McHALE: The welcome center
4 is already tied in. The lodge is what's going to
5 be a question mark. And I have that in our notes
6 when we talk to the DEP about that. They want them
7 to have the planning and permitting before they
8 make a connection. So they're going to have to do
9 something in the interim if they want to build.
10 Figure 5, just the water
11 features. Figure 6 is the soils map. That just
12 shows the different types of soils based upon the
13 Monroe County Soil Survey.
14 Go to figure 7. Now, this shows
15 unsuitable and suitable locations and the municipal
16 boundary, Mark, if you want to highlight that,
17 that's the separation, the municipal boundary
18 between Coolbaugh and Tobyhanna. So all the lots
19 on the lower part of the page are the ones that
20 Tobyhanna Township is going to be responsible to
21 make sure. So now they have -- this is for an
22 inground on-lot system that would be not an
23 elevated sand mound, but actually trenches or
24 seepage beds directly in the ground. And in our
25 area, because of high groundwater, rock, those
12
1 kinds of things, you can see that most of those
2 lots through our area are unsuitable.
3 MRS. LAMBERTON: They'd all have
4 to tie into the sewer.
5 MR. McHALE: Well, no, no.
6 That's only for that one type system. What we're
7 going to step through is the various systems that
8 they have to evaluate before they can make the
9 connection. The one is an in-ground on lot. The
10 next one is the elevated sand mound. Now you can
11 see the green is the suitable, so based upon the
12 soil conditions on the soil survey, now all these
13 sites will have to be tested by, you know, the
14 folks that are proposing to go on lot and reviewed
15 and approved by our sewage enforcement officer,
16 John Brogan.
17 MR. BAXTER: There is a lot of
18 houses in the yellow areas that have old in-ground
19 septic systems.
20 MR. McHALE: Now, those lots, if
21 they fail, they will have to go through the same
22 procedure where they are going to have to try to
23 get an elevated sand mound or other system in
24 place, land based, if they can do it on the lot
25 before they can connect.
13
1 MR. BAXTER: So how many of
2 those -- and this was all laid out when the
3 isolation distance was 50 feet. So one of the
4 primary things they faced in there, even today, to
5 get the 100 foot distance, because the lots are so
6 small, is a major challenge.
7 MR. McHALE: Yes, that's right.
8 And, Rob, just looking at a few
9 lots, just sampling across the board here, based on
10 our GIS, most of these lots that you see in these
11 general areas -- well, not maybe most of them, but
12 a lot of them are about a quarter of an acre.
13 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right.
14 MR. McHALE: That's what we'll
15 get into here in just a minute also because spray
16 irrigation, according to Chapter 73, they have
17 minimum requirements for like 20 inches of
18 separation to the water table. You have to have a
19 minimum of 10,000 square feet of area that you can
20 spray. Well, if the lot is only a quarter acre,
21 they're not going to make that. So if we go to
22 Figure No. 9, this is the individual residential,
23 this is the spray irrigation. Now, I think they
24 have this reversed. They are showing suitable for
25 many of these lots in green. And John Brogan and
14
1 I, when we looked at this and saw the limiting
2 factor being 10,000 square feet, it doesn't look
3 like they are going to be suitable. So what
4 Princeton Hydro needs to do, that will be one of
5 our comments back to them, and they will need to go
6 in here and look at the lot sizes. Now, there
7 might be a couple that are larger lake front lots
8 that might be point four acres, you know, point
9 five, and if they can squeeze it in then that's
10 something to look at. But that particular map we
11 have highlighted is needing to be revisited.
12 Then the next one is the drip
13 irrigation system, and maybe what they did was
14 relabel these and they should be reversed. I'm not
15 really sure how they approached that.
16 Figure 11 is a soil suitability
17 for any type of soil dependant system. So you can
18 see there is quite a few in there that could use
19 one of those systems and make it work on lot.
20 The next one is just prime
21 agricultural. Bedrock geology is 13. And we can
22 scroll through some of these. This is the official
23 geology. Figure 15 is elevation hill shades, so
24 the higher the elevation, the darker kind of brown
25 orangish color, and the lower elevation. The more
15
1 critical one that is related to slope and elevation
2 would be the next one, Figure 16, which is a slope
3 map and you see the red areas are greater than 26
4 percent and they are unsuitable for on lot systems.
5 Figure 17 is the public
6 community wells. Then you have the wetlands on 18
7 and 19. Let's see. 20 shows the existing sewage
8 facilities and they actually have it broken out by
9 gravity system, which is in the dashed red and kind
10 of the green color. That's for the 8/10 inch
11 gravity lines. And then all the forced mains by
12 size are color coded accordingly as well.
13 Now, Rob, I guess this is back
14 to what you were kind of talking about. These are
15 the ones, the green, that are actually on the
16 sewage disposal systems that actually have these
17 individual on-lot systems right now. And then the
18 land use map and zoning. And Figure 24, the last
19 one, this is the one that shows the existing or
20 deeded sewer connection. So any of them that
21 already made connection up to this point had
22 something I guess contractually. Those are shown
23 on that.
24 Okay, if we want, we can scroll
25 through the special study notes. Mark, if you flip
16
1 to that, please. That's the one that's in color.
2 The checklist we put together to identify -- that
3 checklist is what the DEP provides for folks to
4 utilize. And when you actually turn in or submit
5 this document, you would include this, and it has a
6 couple of columns. One is for DEP use, the second
7 column is for to indicate where each of these items
8 on the checklist is actually located in your study.
9 So we went through this as we were reviewing this
10 to identify it so we can have the convenience of
11 looking at these things. And if you note -- I'm
12 sorry. Can we go back to the checklist? We'll
13 scroll through that quickly. You can see items
14 that we had in there like add the plan, and this
15 was before we talked to the DEP. So there could be
16 a couple items that they may no longer need to add
17 to the plan. But if we just scroll down you can
18 see page numbers, items that we had seen initially
19 that weren't in the plan.
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: So those are
21 township notes?
22 MR. McHALE: Those are our notes
23 that we put in there saying that these were things
24 that we did not see in their study. Now, a few of
25 the items, DEP said no, it's not necessary for them
17
1 to go through and fill in those items. So we'll
2 take those out and just say not applicable or
3 something. But there is about 13 pages of items in
4 that checklist.
5 The special study notes, if we
6 can go to those. And I'll just kind of hit the
7 highlights as we go through that and if you have
8 any questions or something comes to mind, we can
9 add additional notes, because what I'd like to do
10 tonight is be able to get all the comments
11 incorporated to get to the board of supervisors.
12 That's supposed to be kind of a
13 blue color and the red doesn't seem to be coming up
14 too well on the wall, but, the first item was --
15 Annie, I think you had sent us an email with that
16 draft that was for the antidegradation requirement
17 that they were going to begin to impose and when we
18 spoke to Daryl Fritz and Bob Corby at the DEP, they
19 indicated that the draft memo applies to new
20 subdivisions and development. This special study
21 is not going to need to go through that
22 antidegradation. That's all of Item 2 up there.
23 Now, the second item, as part of
24 2 was if each lot requires to conduct a preliminary
25 hydrogeologic evaluation for individual on-lot
18
1 systems, the answer was no, except for if they do
2 run into a situation where the nitrate levels
3 exceed, it says there, 5 parts per million, a new
4 subdivision in excess of 50 lots impacts
5 adjacent -- so those are only if they came up with
6 something unique in Arrowhead, would they have to
7 do that.
8 Connection determination plan
9 was part of their special study. It says, are
10 these three systems the only ones that need to be
11 evaluated prior to connection to the waste water
12 treatment facility. Is conventional elevated sand
13 mound and drip and the answer was yes. That was
14 their primary that they wanted to look at, though
15 they may include aerobic tanks and such to size.
16 The spray irrigation they agreed was not suitable
17 due to lot size within the development we talked
18 about. Other systems need to be evaluated. The
19 answer was no. Natural nitrification, if it's not
20 adequate for removal do they have to use some kind
21 of, you know, high tech system to remove nitrates.
22 The answer is no.
23 Implementation costs, should
24 they include costs? Well, they said no because the
25 individual lot owner is going to have to bear the
19
1 cost of the on-lot system. So there was no need to
2 put it in the study.
3 Arrowhead was only assuming 15
4 lots, Item No. 5, to be developed each year and
5 they have available like 886. So it's not likely
6 that they are going to run out of capacity, unless
7 something unexpected than what they're normally
8 used to seeing as far as development in the
9 community.
10 Item No. 6, this was related to
11 the sewage management program, which our township
12 has in place, John Brogan's been implementing for a
13 number of years. Coolbaugh Township is getting
14 ready to implement a program, and one of the
15 questions was, is septic tank pumping required.
16 And basically their answer was that if it's already
17 a part of the sewage management program in place
18 here or at Arrowhead, then yes it will be part of
19 the special study. But if it's not, then they
20 didn't want to go back and reinvent all these
21 sewage management programs as part of the special
22 study at this point in time. But the criteria for
23 that is basically pump every three years or a third
24 full of the tank.
25 There currently -- let's see,
20
1 justification of waste water treatment plan
2 expansion be included in the special study. The
3 answer was no. We got into a few other items which
4 we discussed and these were just notes that John
5 and I were compiling.
6 Let's go down to 12, I guess,
7 the sewage disposal needs identification. That's
8 essentially what John Brogan has done throughout
9 the township. He did a needs analysis for the
10 survey portion of it where he went to a specified
11 number, I think it was in the 400 range, of lots to
12 not only get water samples, but also to walk the
13 lot and identify the in-place systems that are
14 there, see if they are failing or not, but he's
15 conducted that for our overall plans for the
16 township. But as far as Arrowhead, they are not
17 going to need to do that in the special study.
18 MRS. LAMBERTON: Don't you think
19 that would be important? If you have all these
20 elevated sand mounds that are not operating
21 correctly, why would they want to install more?
22 MR. McHALE: Well, I guess their
23 basic philosophy is anything they can get as far as
24 water being back into the ground treated, they want
25 to do that. The back up, one of the things that
21
1 they have that's an advantage over most other
2 places, not only in our township, but in other
3 parts of the county or state, is that they do have
4 a system that if they fail on lot they have the
5 force main either near or in front of their
6 properties that they can connect. As far as the
7 extension of any other sewer mains in Arrowhead
8 Development, they said that those would have to be
9 included in this special study if they want to make
10 those extensions. And that's going to be -- you
11 know, they could end up with some extensions that
12 may go for, you know, a hundred or a thousand feet
13 and only pick up a few customers if everyone is
14 going on lots. So they're going to have to look
15 at --
16 MRS. LAMBERTON: Here you have a
17 homeowner putting 15,000 maybe into a sand mound.
18 Sand mounds fail. They have a sewer line that runs
19 in front of their house, they are not allowed to
20 tie into it until they know that sand mound is
21 going to fail, then they have to pay for a hook up
22 into the sewer line.
23 MR. McHALE: That's essentially
24 the way it's set up.
25 There is a few other items that
22
1 just needed to be incorporated into it and
2 verifying with Coolbaugh Township.
3 The last item, 21, regarding the
4 proposed lodge, and DEP reemphasized that they will
5 not allow a connection to the existing force main
6 until all sewage facility planning and the water
7 quality part 2 permit is completed.
8 Then they also indicated they
9 should have some kind of schedule for the lodge put
10 in place and financial securities if they are going
11 to use an interim holding tank concept.
12 And the last item, which is just
13 the item related to the Arrowhead sewer company
14 contract is already in place. They also had two
15 amenities that they were counting on making those
16 connections.
17 I believe that's kind of a
18 summary of what we see in front of us. A lot of
19 work by Princeton Hydro to pull together this
20 special study. They did a good job, but, like I
21 said, there are a few things that need to be
22 revisited, but not a whole lot. We can get these
23 comments, if you all have comments, we can
24 incorporate those.
25 MRS. LAMBERTON: The one large
23
1 map needs to be flopped with colors, indicating
2 those lots being opposite of what they reported.
3 MR. McHALE: Correct. And on
4 the checklist there was a few items that they
5 needed to either include some things related to
6 their existing plan, which they already have the
7 data available to them. Then there's their
8 operating plan. So it's just a matter of pulling
9 some of the Chapter 94 information and putting it
10 in the --
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: And from what I
12 understand, this requirement that they go on lot is
13 a knee jerk reaction that was brought out in the
14 Pittsburgh area for the degradation of the water
15 quality. Are you familiar with that? I think it
16 was Lafayette County.
17 MR. ARMSTRONG: I have seen this
18 type of hybrid system before down in Bucks County,
19 but not typically through DEP. Sometimes it's
20 through the local municipality and the authority,
21 whatever it may be. But I haven't seen DEP
22 involved in it up until now, personally.
23 MR. McHALE: I think Rob was
24 highlighting, you know, made a good point earlier
25 about the size of these lots and the closeness, you
24
1 know, the proximity to the lake, the wetlands, the
2 high ground water, the near surface rock, any of
3 those items, steep slopes, make it challenging to
4 site these things.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: How much would
6 it cost the owner to go through an analysis of
7 their lot to prove they need to connect into the
8 system? I mean, that's got to be --
9 MRS. LAMBERTON: Wouldn't that
10 be the perk tests to see if a mound --
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: You'd have to go
12 through -- well, probably the first thing is look
13 at the size of your lot. If it's a quarter acre, I
14 would think you're going to be limited in what you
15 can do. But, I mean, who says that? Who does the
16 homeowner have to pay to justify that?
17 MRS. LAMBERTON: Would that be
18 our SEO?
19 MR. McHALE: But what Ann was
20 saying too, there would need to be testing on site
21 and our sewage enforcement officer would be there
22 to review and look at that with them, and then
23 ultimately, if they've exhausted these primary
24 systems, that there's a connection determination
25 plan that they outlined, once they exhaust that
25
1 those different systems cannot be utilized, then
2 they can make their connection.
3 MR. BAXTER: Two thousand
4 dollars.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right. Two
6 thousand dollars to do the study and probably, I
7 don't know what their connection fees are out there
8 and then the cost of putting in the system, making
9 the connection, because I assume it's all
10 pressure --
11 MR. McHALE: I believe that's
12 correct, Mark. One of those maps I think for the
13 area we are speaking to --
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: The gravity I
15 think is in --
16 MRS. LAMBERTON: The old
17 section.
18 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right.
19 MR. McHALE: Correct.
20 If we can refer back to the
21 February 9, 2010 letter. Again, what they are
22 looking for at this point in time from the township
23 would be the review comments and some kind of
24 informal approval that, okay, subject to maybe the
25 comments, you can go ahead and submit to the county
26
1 for them to review. And then as we go down the
2 list here, Item No. 5 looks like once the public
3 comment process is closed and Princeton Hydro will
4 work with the township on any revisions to the
5 special study and then a final version will be
6 submitted to the township for a formal resolution
7 and adoption.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: To finish up on
9 my comment, it is all pressure in the new section?
10 MR. McHALE: Yes.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: So it would
12 require a grinder pump, four thousand dollars for
13 the grinder pumps.
14 MR. McHALE: And that map, the
15 Figure 20, it only shows the lines that are
16 currently in place. So if they want to run or
17 extend lines, again, that's something DEP said they
18 should be putting in their study. So perhaps maybe
19 they need an extra map to show proposed force main
20 extensions.
21 MRS. LAMBERTON: And get
22 approval.
23 MR. BAXTER: From a practical
24 stand point, if you look out 10, 20 years, the
25 whole area will need to be sewered.
27
1 MRS. LAMBERTON: We should just
2 get it approved now.
3 MR. BAXTER: It seems foolish to
4 be piecemealing this because in 10 years they're
5 going to be back with a whole other section of
6 failed septic systems. There is a limited life to
7 septic systems and Arrowhead's been there for 40
8 years. Most of the inground systems have failed or
9 if they haven't it's only because the house has
10 been used so little.
11 MR. McHALE: That will be
12 another factor, depending on how many homes would
13 transition or convert possibly to vacation homes to
14 permanent residences. That could have an affect as
15 well to the life of the system.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: I saw some notes
17 about the size of the system, of the actual
18 treatment plant. What is it sized to handle?
19 MR. McHALE: Currently I believe
20 they are permitted to 400 thousand gallons a day.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Do you know what
22 their average flow is?
23 MR. McHALE: I think it's in the
24 study. But I believe they had indicated in the
25 study they had 886 EDUs available.
28
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: If you say 200
2 times that, you have 180 thousand available.
3 MR. McHALE: Mark, there is a
4 narrative portion of the special study. It's on
5 line as well. But in the first paragraph it says
6 the current data from Arrowhead Community
7 Association --
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: What page --
9 MR. McHALE: Page 5. -- reveal
10 that there is approximately 3,397 housing units and
11 1,205 undeveloped lots within the community
12 boundary. Another point, note, there currently
13 exists 22.4 miles of sewer line within the special
14 study area; on Page 7.
15 Page 18, they have an NPDES
16 Permit for 525,000. The total capacity of modules
17 1 through 4 is 400,000 per day. So currently they
18 have 400,000. They were looking at a build out to
19 650 and they were utilizing an EDU at 175 gallons
20 per day.
21 MR. MILLER: Is that standard,
22 Bob?
23 MR. McHALE: Well, a lot of the
24 systems will start out somewhere around 250.
25 That's what ours is at. But when you look at the
29
1 actual numbers minus any INI that might get into
2 your system, you're probably close to 175 to 190
3 type thing.
4 MRS. LAMBERTON: They do have
5 enough capacity.
6 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right, they do
7 have enough capacity.
8 MR. McHALE: On page 23 they do
9 have an effluent meter that's at the plant which
10 they didn't show on their sketch. That was another
11 item that we mentioned. I should highlight that.
12 But they state the first volume components, it
13 says, up to the end of August 2009 the highest
14 measurement of the influent was 215,768 gallons per
15 day. That was the highest measurement. So the
16 rolling average of 224 gallons per day divided by
17 the number of EDUs currently connected, and that's
18 1285.8 and that's where they got the 175.
19 Page 24 actually shows a little
20 table for the current EDUs, shows central sewer
21 EDUs, septic undeveloped EDUs and total EDUs.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: That chart shows
23 that the winter has higher flows than the summer,
24 which you would think would be opposite.
25 Interesting.
30
1 MR. McHALE: Okay. On Page 23
2 they indicate that they spoke to the plant operator
3 and believe that while extensive infiltration in
4 flow investigation to repairs have been completed
5 and have reduced the instances of high flow, winter
6 flows are elevated through the operation of
7 residential sump pumps due to runoff and ground
8 water collection. So they believe there is illegal
9 connections, basically. The bottom of Page 24 they
10 did give the actual median lot size of .29 acres.
11 MR. BAXTER: There is no way
12 that this could ever be developed today if you
13 started from scratch. If it had been a 50 foot
14 isolation distance back when they did it, it never
15 would have happened. Permit requirements were so
16 minimal at that point.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: They couldn't
18 have built the lake.
19 MR. BAXTER: Right.
20 MR. McHALE: I don't have
21 anything further.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anyone have any
23 comments?
24 I wanted to make the comment
25 that the feeling is it's ridiculous that they make
31
1 these homeowners go through all this cost, when
2 it's obvious that this area needed a central sewer
3 system.
4 MRS. LAMBERTON: Their concern
5 though is that because of the groundwater, they are
6 trying to obviously have it recharge and go back in
7 the ground. I understand that, but is there anyway
8 of having a sewer treatment plant recharge?
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: Spray
10 irrigation.
11 MRS. LAMBERTON: Why don't they
12 do that and allow these folks to tie in and --
13 MR. McHALE: I don't think there
14 is land available for them near the plant where
15 they could.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: That was one of
17 the big things when they designed the Blakeslee
18 system, they needed to look. That was one of the
19 eliminating criteria for the stream discharge.
20 They had to look at the land, but land is so
21 expensive. You need 100 acres --
22 MRS. LAMBERTON: Why not use
23 open space?
24 MR. SINCAVAGE: It seems to me
25 that the comment was that, and I don't have it in
32
1 front of me, that, although, I said the drip
2 irrigation would do minimal damage, I don't like
3 that word, to the environment --
4 MRS. LAMBERTON: This is the
5 drip instead of spray?
6 MR. BAXTER: Impact.
7 MR. SINCAVAGE: Impact. It
8 would be minimal impact to the whole open space
9 area. It probably wouldn't even be noticeable.
10 MR. McHALE: But, and exactly
11 what you're talking about, especially in the
12 Blakeslee area, that would be treated effluent that
13 would drip into the ground.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right.
15 MRS. LAMBERTON: Which is what
16 they want.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right.
18 MRS. LAMBERTON: But they won't
19 let us do it?
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: Who?
21 MRS. LAMBERTON: DEP.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: No.
23 MR. McHALE: It hasn't really
24 been addressed yet, really. I mean, it's an idea
25 that's out there and an opportunity to be explored,
33
1 but as far as --
2 MR. BAXTER: I don't think
3 any -- I shouldn't say it broadly, but an
4 intelligent look at drip irrigation in open space
5 is putting the water back into the ground, and I
6 don't think that would necessarily be in opposition
7 to most open space either easements or ownerships.
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: It comes back to
9 what is always the issue and has been the issue
10 probably since the dawn of history, is that you
11 need to educate the populous about what you're
12 talking about doing, because when they hear you're
13 going to drip irrigate a sewage treatment plant in
14 an open space area they think they are going to
15 have, excuse my term, turds floating down the
16 river. And it's not happening, but they don't
17 understand that because the news media likes to
18 sensationalize it.
19 MR. McHALE: So instead of it
20 being a stream discharge, it's going to be treated
21 effluent going through the waste water treatment
22 facility. And instead of discharging directly to
23 stream, it would just simply go to the drip
24 irrigation system. That's one way in which the
25 plant could be expanded and not have to increase
34
1 the stream discharge numbers.
2 MR. SINCAVAGE: But then it
3 comes to the issue of public monies were used to
4 acquire that property, the open space property in
5 this case. My argument would be it's for the
6 benefit of the general public because you're still
7 protecting the resources.
8 MR. BAXTER: In part.
9 MR. SINCAVAGE: You're still
10 protecting the stream.
11 MR. ARMSTRONG: You'd have to
12 look if there is any restrictions with whatever
13 open space you're considering. A lot of open space
14 have easements, conversation type easements.
15 MR. BAXTER: This is somewhat
16 related, but I was out in central Pennsylvania last
17 week and there is a land trust out there that has
18 in some cases thousands of acres and their big
19 issue out there is Marcellus shale. And they are
20 actually in open space and conservation easement
21 areas, going to allow the drilling because they now
22 have non-surface disturbance drilling. So they
23 don't even come on to the property. They might be
24 over here, but they are going to go down 7,000 feet
25 and come into it and drill for the gas. So because
35
1 of the non-surface impact in that case, all these
2 conservation easements have taken a whole second
3 look at the potential of the -- and part of what is
4 making them take a second look is the outrages
5 amount of money that are being paid for the
6 drilling rights. People are getting five thousand
7 dollars an acre just for drilling rights. So that
8 type of financial remuneration doesn't come with
9 spray irrigation. If there was a connection, it
10 might open up some other people's perceptions.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anyhow, back to
12 our project at hand here, does anybody -- I mean, I
13 kind of made a comment. Bob, I don't know if you
14 got that down about what I was talking about. It
15 is going to be very costly to the homeowner.
16 MR. BAXTER: I also wonder about
17 the economics of having to piecemeal this as
18 opposed to being able to garner one expansion that
19 might cover the whole community in terms of the
20 cost of running lines. If they've got to run lines
21 by houses that aren't going to be allowed to hook
22 up to get to one guy way down here who is hooking
23 up, you're putting out an awful lot of up-front
24 money you can't recoup from all of these people you
25 just passed by until they actually get into
36
1 failure, and at the point of failure, how long has
2 it been in failure and contaminating the surface
3 before ultimately they have to hook up. So it just
4 seems to me that it would raise the total cost of
5 this, substantially, by making them keep waiting
6 for failures to hook up and or being able -- as
7 opposed to being able to just simply do a mass
8 extension of lines, get it through the whole
9 community in one dig as opposed to now, you know,
10 you just run a road and you go down the road and
11 then the next time you're digging up, digging and
12 filling, digging and filling, as opposed to just
13 one continuous project and it's done.
14 MR. SINCAVAGE: Bob, was the
15 study done to see how many failures are occurring
16 in the current on-lot systems?
17 MR. McHALE: I don't -- no, that
18 was part of what we were saying about the needs
19 analysis. And they were saying they didn't need to
20 do that, but that would be a sampling of within the
21 community.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: Was that
23 something that John Brogan may have done as part of
24 the on-lot inspection?
25 MRS. LAMBERTON: Visual
37
1 inspection, yes.
2 MR. SINCAVAGE: With a visual
3 inspection.
4 MR. McHALE: We had started out
5 with a certain number that was allocated for the
6 entire community based on a pro rata number of the
7 total lots in the entire township, Arrowhead, and I
8 don't recall the number, maybe it was 50 or 70,
9 that they would have had done if this hybrid system
10 was not going into place. As far as them going out
11 and do that, that was one of the answers that we
12 received from DEP, is no, they didn't have to do
13 the needs analysis before, but as far as
14 identifying which ones are failing right now, I
15 don't know. John might have some records of that.
16 MR. SINCAVAGE: It seems to me
17 that if a system, if the on-lot system is currently
18 failing and, as Rob pointed out, we know that those
19 systems have been there for 40 years and they are
20 going to be starting to fail, if they are not
21 failing already, then doesn't that present a
22 degradation to the waters more so than making them
23 not connect into the system? You have that
24 potential there that the system is going to fail.
25 MRS. LAMBERTON: They should
38
1 look at the ones that are failing.
2 MR. SINCAVAGE: And see how many
3 are failing.
4 MRS. LAMBERTON: They might be
5 surprised.
6 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right. If 70
7 percent of the on-lot systems are failing, then why
8 are we going through this exercise?
9 MRS. LAMBERTON: I agree.
10 MR. BAXTER: The other issue is
11 if there are 1200 vacant lots, I'll take an
12 educated guess, it's less than 10 percent of those
13 could pass for perk today either because of
14 isolation distance or poor soils, so there is a
15 thousand lots that could be buildable just by
16 opening the hook up without having to make them go
17 through that whole scenario of doing testing and
18 proving that it can't be suitable, because then
19 you've got septic systems, two lots that are okay
20 and you've got to make these people do a septic
21 system.
22 MR. SINCAVAGE: Now, I agree
23 with your comments, but I think, unfortunately,
24 based on this lawsuit, DEP is going to make you do
25 that.
39
1 MR. BAXTER: One of the impacts
2 is that every time you take somebody to court and
3 you make them put a big sand mound, sand mounds are
4 getting as big as some of the houses, and you ruin
5 the whole remaining aesthetic character of the
6 community, instead of leaving it wooded. There has
7 got to be a benefit to leaving it wooded and
8 undisturbed to a much greater extent to when you
9 disturb a third of the lot with a septic system.
10 MR. McHALE: One item that is
11 helpful to them with regard to the actual system
12 itself is that all the new areas or the areas that
13 have those force mains would be continued to be
14 extended force mains, which means they don't have
15 to construct as deep -- if they had a gravity
16 system over here on this side, it would be even
17 more expensive from a force main construction stand
18 point.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right. In
20 general, we are in favor of the project. We are in
21 favor of what they are trying to correct, the
22 situation that they unfortunately found themselves
23 in. I think we, as a board, are supportive of
24 their project and hope they can work through all
25 the issues with DEP.
40
1 MR. BAXTER: With strong
2 encouragement to do the whole thing.
3 MR. SINCAVAGE: If you want to
4 put that in there, I'm with you, Rob, but it's DEP.
5 MR. ARMSTRONG: Off the record.
6 (Discussion not included in the
7 minutes.)
8 MR. BAXTER: Personally, I think
9 still, understanding DEP may have -- they really
10 ought to take a look, because there was a problem
11 here, they could get a reverse problem here.
12 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right. I think
13 you're right.
14 MR. BAXTER: The other side of
15 this is there could be suits because they don't
16 allow it and they ultimately create a lot more
17 surface contamination by forcing this to happen.
18 MR. SINCAVAGE: That's a good
19 point. That's a very good point.
20 MR. BAXTER: Because you're
21 going to make my system fail when I know it's going
22 and ultimately that may go across somebody else's
23 property or even the lake because there's -- if you
24 go around that whole -- start here and you go all
25 the way around these lake front lots and in here
41
1 particularly there is a bunch of steep sloped lots,
2 those systems fail, it's all down hill, and it's
3 right into the lake. So DEP might want to take
4 some of that into consideration and truly look at
5 this.
6 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anything else on
7 this? Are we good?
8 We'll move on to the next item
9 on our agenda. Redesignation of the Upper Lehigh
10 River.
11 We all received this
12 electronically also. Bob, I sent out an email. I
13 don't know if anybody got it. I think this is a
14 done deal, I mean, when I read through the study.
15 Bob, I don't know what we are discussing here.
16 MR. McHALE: You had
17 highlighted, Mark, that you looked back at an email
18 from last year regarding when the conservation
19 district -- do you recall that, when they -- you
20 were there to make the vote one way or the other.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Yes. I was
22 there. No, no. I didn't make the vote one way or
23 another.
24 MR. McHALE: What I meant was
25 you voted against it and I guess there was three in
42
1 favor and a couple abstained because they were
2 saying that they didn't feel like -- and you were
3 saying -- it wasn't enough information provided to
4 actually make the decision.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right.
6 MR. McHALE: Here's the letter
7 from the conservation district that was their
8 justification of the three votes I believe that
9 were in favor of it.
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: Right.
11 Basically, you're all welcome to read that, but
12 basically what happened at the conversation
13 district is the staff did an analysis of what was
14 done. The stream, the main branch of the stream
15 does not meet the criteria for EV. A couple of the
16 feeder streams do. But when you go into the
17 regulations, you only have to meet two of the three
18 criteria. Bob, correct me, if I say something
19 wrong. And overall it did meet that. So the
20 recommendation was that it should receive the EV.
21 MRS. LAMBERTON: The feeders
22 are.
23 MR. SINCAVAGE: The Lehigh is at
24 the main branch.
25 MRS. LAMBERTON: The Tobyhanna.
43
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: No, the small
2 feeders, like little streams like Trout Run, small
3 streams, some of those do meet the criteria. Then
4 based on the overall -- and when you read through
5 this study and the recommendation of DEP -- the DEP
6 staff to the EQB, it's because it does meet the
7 criteria.
8 MR. BAXTER: Does the Tobyhanna
9 Creek meet the exceptional value --
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: No. The Tunk
11 may. Tobyhanna does not. I'm not sure why I think
12 that. Something I recall.
13 MR. BAXTER: I thought they both
14 did. I thought that was kind of what really got
15 this whole thing going, because the Tobyhanna/Tunk
16 Watershed Association got involved with this a
17 number of years ago.
18 (Discussion not included in the
19 minutes.)
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: The letter from
21 the Monroe County Conservation District says that
22 these criterion require that at least one of the
23 two high quality water criterion, chemistry and
24 biology and at least one of the six exceptional
25 value criterion are met. They said it did. It met
44
1 the biology but it didn't meet the chemistry. I
2 think that's what you were saying. I'm talking
3 about the main branch. Some of the tributaries did
4 and that's why they said, well these could be. But
5 that's what this letter says. I think it's the
6 second paragraph.
7 MR. McHALE: That's correct. It
8 does say that for high quality surface water to
9 meet one or more of the following conditions. And
10 Item No. 1 is chemistry and Item No. 2 is biology.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: That's where it
12 comes up with that position.
13 MRS. LAMBERTON: I think they
14 should meet all the requirements.
15 MR. SINCAVAGE: I voted against
16 it.
17 Bob, the other question in my
18 email was this study says Tobyhanna Township didn't
19 submit any comments.
20 MRS. LAMBERTON: I saw that too.
21 MR. SINCAVAGE: Were those sent
22 in?
23 MR. McHALE: It wasn't comments.
24 You can read that note there.
25 MR. SINCAVAGE: Okay. They sent
45
1 a letter of not supporting it. That was July.
2 MR. McHALE: But I think there
3 is opportunity now, according to the post card that
4 was sent out to everyone, I think we have until
5 April 16th. Comments should be sent by April 16,
6 2010 and they give the DEP person to contact. So
7 we should generate --
8 MR. SINCAVAGE: I would strongly
9 encourage the township to submit a comment. I
10 would submit your comment concerning the chemistry
11 variations from the norm. You know, I would at
12 least bring that to the attention of EQB and see if
13 you can get anywhere.
14 (Discussion not included in the
15 minutes.)
16 MR. McHALE: So what is --
17 MR. ARMSTRONG: If you want to
18 make a recommendation on comments.
19 MR. SINCAVAGE: I'll make the
20 comment, as I made down at the conservation
21 district, that I think this is going to hamper
22 economic development within the township and that
23 the township should take an opposition to the
24 petition.
25 MRS. LAMBERTON: And I agree.
46
1 MR. SINCAVAGE: Do you have a
2 comment? Any other comments? I don't know what
3 else you can expound upon. We should question the
4 chemistry and the biology as you pointed out, Bob.
5 Now, can we get some sort of answer to those two
6 points?
7 MR. McHALE: Do you know if they
8 ever do an independent third party review for
9 matters like this?
10 MR. SINCAVAGE: Not that I'm
11 aware of. All the EV petitions that I've ever been
12 indirectly or directly involved with, has been just
13 DEP, period.
14 MR. ARMSTRONG: Are those the
15 comments you want mentioned?
16 MRS. LAMBERTON: Yes.
17 MR. SINCAVAGE: And, Bob, I'm
18 sure you may have some more comments. Hopefully
19 the supervisors will. And we strongly encourage
20 them to get the comments to DEP by the April 16
21 deadline. All right?
22 MRS. LAMBERTON: Sounds good.
23 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anything else to
24 talk about?
25 Yes, I just wanted to be on the
47
1 record that I did get the photos, Ann sent me some
2 photos, Pat said he has some more photos to get to
3 me. It's the beginning of our process. I know
4 three of us did attend a seminar on visioning our
5 town, which I think we all found really informative
6 and really helpful. I think that we'd like to
7 encourage the supervisors to continue the process
8 of visioning that Jamie Keener has taken up so far.
9 I know the other supervisors are behind him, but it
10 does require some funding. I also would encourage
11 the township to ask for some ordinances, model
12 ordinances that were referred to during that
13 seminar, that are probably available from the
14 county planning commission. I did request them
15 from the presenter, but he didn't submit them to
16 me. Remember at the beginning he said if you're
17 interested give me your email, and I gave him my
18 email and I didn't receive anything from him. I
19 don't have an email of his and I didn't get his
20 card. I'm sure the planning commission would have
21 those model ordinances or something that we can
22 look at. I would say the planning commission's
23 feeling is that we would strongly encourage that
24 that visioning process move forward for the
25 township. We'll get our map together. I wanted to
48
1 get some words on there. If you guys can get more
2 pictures to me for the next meeting, I'll try to
3 get some words --
4 MRS. LAMBERTON: Caption.
5 MR. SINCAVAGE: Then I'll get
6 them down. As long as everybody is comfortable
7 with what that looks like and the direction we are
8 going.
9 MRS. LAMBERTON: Oh, yes.
10 Absolutely.
11 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anything else to
12 come before the board?
13 Brick City is on here yet, Bob.
14 MR. McHALE: We recently
15 received another round of comments from PennDOT
16 which those were also forwarded to the applicant's
17 engineer and the applicant, so we are just waiting
18 to hear back form them as to how they are
19 proceeding on the project.
20 MR. SINCAVAGE: Anything else?
21 We stand adjourned. Thank you.
22 (Meeting concluded at 8:20 p.m.)
23 ---
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6
7 I hereby certify that the
8 proceedings and evidence are contained fully and
9 accurately in the notes taken by me at the meeting
10 in the above matter; and that the foregoing is a
11 true and correct transcript of the same.
12
13
14
15 JOSEPHINE HOLLMAN, C.R.
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