The Altoona Water Authority is discussing with Tyrone Borough the possibility of connecting an authority water line to a line on the borough’s water system, in case of an emergency water shortage in Tyrone.

“It would be a backup feed for those guys,” said authority Water Operations Director Mike Bianconi at the most recent authority meeting.

“Say our reservoir got contaminated,” said Tyrone Water Superintendent Don Shultz in a phone interview, explaining that the borough’s reservoir along Route 453 northwest of the municipality is the borough’s only water source. “Or if something happened at our plant.”

Shultz has been thinking about the issue in case of “something catastrophic” for about a year, he said.

He discussed it with the state Department of Environmental Protection, asking at first about the possibility of reactivating the borough’s well field — but was told “no way that’s happening,” he said.

When he mentioned that he’d also been thinking also about an interconnection with the Altoona authority, he was told that that was a good idea, he said.

The authority has a 12-inch line that runs to the paper mill in Tyrone that was taken out of service due to leakage years ago, Shultz said.

It passed close by the Tyrone train station, he said.

It is within 200 feet of an 8-inch borough main that dead-ends near G&R Excavating and Demolition on Pennsylvania Avenue, Shultz said.

The authority recently recharged a section of its old line and it held water for a week, Shultz said.

The plan is for the authority’s 12-inch line to be reduced to an 8-inch line in a meter pit, where the connection would be made between the systems, officials from both organizations said.

The meter would measure the amount of water that the authority provided to the borough, so that it could be paid for.

As part of the arrangement, the borough would take over a 2,000-foot section of the old authority line, back to a hydrant in Thomastown, according

to Shultz.

Borough Council would need to approve the expense of making the connection, Shultz was told.

Shultz predicted that given the “hoops and hurdles,” the connection won’t likely be made until spring.

“(But) the sooner the better,” he said.

It will be a relief to him when it’s done, he said.

“Could that flow both ways?” asked authority member Jack Speece.

“Potentially,” Bianconi said. “We’re looking into all possibilities.”

The connection would be memorialized through a negotiated agreement between the parties, according to authority General Manager Mark Perry.

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