The Altoona Water Authority will ask Penn-VEST for a “letter of no prejudice” as a preliminary to obtaining the necessary funds for the $6.8 million replacement of the ozone systems at the Horseshoe Curve and Kettle water treatment plants.

The authority has already committed to completing ozone system replacements at its other four active water treatment plants — Tipton, Mill Run, Plane 9 and Bellwood — so the work at Horseshoe Curve and Kettle would complete the transition from the old ozone systems installed as long as 30 years ago, said consulting engineer Jim Balliet of Gwin Dobson & Foreman at a recent meeting.

The authority needs the letter of no prejudice for the $3.4 million in equipment costs, so that it can order the equipment ahead of time for the installation project that it’s planning for the winter of 2025-26 — due to the 12-15 month lead time in obtaining that equipment, according to Balliet.

If the authority waits to order the equipment until it bids the job a year and several months from now, the contractor would charge a premium of perhaps 10% to delay the start of the job until the equipment arrives a year or more later, Balliet said.

Letters of no prejudice don’t commit PennVEST to funding projects, but they’re necessary to obtain a waiver of the agency’s normal requirement to hold off on ordering equipment before completing a funding settlement, according to a PennVEST web page.

Letters of no prejudice are available in cases where organizations that are planning projects encounter supply chain or environmental issues or economic opportunities or need to do emergency work before they can obtain a full commitment from PennVEST for the money, according to the web page.

The authority is hoping for some of the funding for the Horseshoe Curve-Kettle project to be in the form of a grant, instead of the usual 100% loan, according to Balliet.

That hope is based on recent PennVEST adjustments to its affordability index, coupled with the authority’s current rates, according to Balliet and PennVEST Executive Director Robert Boos, who spoke to the Mirror in April.

The affordability index changes were made because PennVEST is flush with funds, due to loan paybacks over the years and due to money it received from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, according to Balliet and Boos.

Previously, PennVEST didn’t begin to provide grants to maintain affordability until customer rates exceeded 1.5% of median household income, according to Balliet.

Now, the agency considers grants to maintain affordability when customers are paying more than between 0.5% and 1.25% of median household income, according to Boos.

PennVEST essentially asks, “What can a community afford?” Boos said in April.

The authority has never been denied when it has asked PennVEST for a letter of no prejudice, Balliet said.

Ozone treatment kills bacteria, protozoa and algae, removes taste and odor problems caused by iron and manganese, has the capability of neutralizing “emerging” contaminants and is a general, all-around disinfection agent, according to Balliet.

The authority’s old systems are obsolete, and replacement parts are hard to get, making it a struggle for workers to keep the systems operational, Balliet said.

The new systems are smaller, relying on liquid oxygen tanks and an ozone generator that splits the oxygen molecules and re-forms them as ozone gas that is mixed with the water.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.