NEWRY — Things got testy for a time Wednesday evening at a meeting of Borough Council jammed with residents and representatives of emergency response agencies and schools concerned about the potential closure of Catfish Road.

The move was proposed due to deterioration of a 100-year-old culvert that takes the road over an unnamed stream on the borough’s eastern edge.

The tiny municipality receives minimal tax revenue, and the outlook is unsure about grants, so it’s uncertain whether Newry can afford to repair or replace the culvert, and how long that might take — even as leaving the road open may be a safety hazard and a municipal liability, officials said.

But things ended with cautious optimism after the owner of a local farm market volunteered to launch a community fundraiser to repair or replace the culvert, while the father of an excavating contractor suggested his son might offer a favorable bid to work on such a project, and a retired manager at a plant specializing in Fiber Reinforced Polymer expressed willingness to help the borough obtain a plug-in culvert replacement.

Many of the approximately 50 attendees had seemed to believe that borough leaders planned to close the road permanently — an option they made clear would be unacceptable.

That wasn’t the plan, borough officials told them.

Council had no intention of closing the road until it had a repair or replacement plan in place, said solicitor Mike Emerick.

Still, there wasn’t a clear alternative, officials admitted.

Borough engineer Tom Levine estimated that replacing the culvert in a traditional project would cost $350,000, while repairing it in Band-Aid fashion could cost $45,000.

With 160 households in a four-block square area, the borough collects just $40,000 in tax revenue annually, so the borough simply couldn’t afford even the cheaper alternative, according to council President Mike Seno.

Of potential grants that borough officials investigated, one looked promising, but it required a 30% match, officials said.

The borough has had discussions with PennDOT, but the agency was reluctant even to document its opinions on the structure, which as a culvert doesn’t qualify for treatment as a bridge, Levine said.

A closure no matter how long would require either a 15-minute northern detour, via Dunnings Highway, Newry Lane and Route 36 and a 10-minute southern detour via Dunnings Highway, Route 164 and Route 36, according to Seno.

Such closure would require reconfiguration of school bus routes serving the Hollidaysburg Area School District, while also causing concerns about how parents of Saint Patrick’s Elementary School students would deal with unexpected issues that arise at the school; whether emergency responders could get to emergency scenes quickly enough in some locations; and also whether some residents could access hospital care quickly enough in emergencies.

There were suggestions about placing Jersey barriers and making the road one-way over the culvert, to eliminate the safety and liability issues, even if it meant inconvenience.

It would be less inconvenient than the detour, someone said.

There were also suggestions by local workers about undertaking the project themselves.

Optimism began to prevail when Donna Meiser, owner of Leighty’s Farm Market, asked if it would be OK to start a project fundraiser, following almost an hour of discussion that included a couple threats by Seno to have one individual removed from the room.

Levine, pleased and relieved, said he’d never witnessed such an offer in such a setting.

“Can you head up that campaign?” Emerick asked Meiser, and she agreed.

“We could work with you on it,” said Councilmember Anne Seno, Mike’s wife.

She invited others to help in that effort.

Meiser said she’ll be setting out a contribution box on the counter at the market alongside the one that collects money for the Central Pennsylvania Humane Society, while also publicizing the campaign on the internet.

Meiser, Levine and borough officials are expected to work with Matt Veckov, whose son Garrett owns Victory Excavating; and Mike Gassler, former quality manager at Creative Pultrusions in Alum Bank, both of whom offered to be of assistance.

Ultimately, the main takeaway was that everyone wants any closure of the culvert to be as brief as possible, Levine said.

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