A proposed multi-million-dollar sewer project along Reservoir Road between West Loop Road and Brooks Mills is in jeopardy because the Blair Township Water and Sewer Authority no longer has enough time to start and finish the project’s first phase before an end-of-September deadline for spending the $2.5 million federal grant it received to pay for it.

The grant money originated with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which carries that deadline, but it came to the authority through the Small Water and Sewer Program of the state Department of Community and Economic Development, which is normally amenable to grant extensions, which led officials not to worry — a lack of worry that was reinforced by conversations with the office of a local lawmaker, according to authority consulting engineer Dave Cunningham of Keller Engineers, speaking by phone Wednesday.

The serenity disappeared, however, when authority officials learned from the office of state Rep. John Joyce that such an extension for ARPA funding would literally require an act of Congress, an act that is not likely to happen in “this political climate” — meaning that the project as envisioned will not unfold as planned, if it unfolds at all, according to township officials.

“The $2.5 million allocated for this effort in Blair County is at risk,” Joyce stated in an email in response to the Mirror’s request for information Wednesday. The ARPA spending deadline is “strict,” Joyce wrote.

He is hoping, however, to obtain an extension through the executive, rather than his own legislative branch, he stated.

“I have contacted the Treasury Department to strongly advocate,” he wrote, “for an extension that would allow the Blair Township Water and Sewer Authority to bring the project into compliance and utilize the funding.”

If that effort fails, there are other options, officials said.

The authority could try to spend at least some of the ARPA money on the pipes and other materials needed for Phase 1 and — if DCED permits — on replacing failing sewer lines in the Penn Farm Estates area, so as not to waste the funding, Cunningham said.

That approach creates other issues, due to the disruption of interlocking arrangements that comprised the original plan.

For one, the money spent in Penn Farms wouldn’t be available for Phase 1 on Reservoir Road, so that if Phase 1 eventually moves forward, either another grant would need to be found or the authority would need to borrow, which would tend to increase sewer rates — something the authority has been trying to minimize.

For another, using the ARPA money in Penn Farms would also require finding a way to provide the required 33 percent match, officials said.

Under the original plan, that was provided by the Phase 2 Reservoir Road money — a $3.8 million Community Development Block Grant allocation from a competitive state program.

The CDBG money would remain available, but the township might need to borrow to provide the ARPA match.

Phase 2 can’t be done independently of Phase 1, as Phase 1 provides the hookup to the sewer plant.

Seeking accountability

At a supervisors meeting Tuesday, Chairman Paul Amigh lambasted the authority for the situation.

“It’s clear that someone dropped the ball on these grants,” Amigh said. “Who will be held responsible?”

About $500,000 has been spent so far on engineering, Cunningham said.

That money would be wasted if the Reservoir Road project doesn’t get done, Amigh said.

Amigh urged fellow Supervisor Jacob Wible, an authority member since 2025 and chairman starting this year, “to hold someone accountable.”

The authority board seems to have been “poorly advised” by Cunningham and authority Manager Tim McGaw, according to Wible.

“I’m just the manager here,” McGaw said by phone Wednesday. “We work everything through Kellers.”

“I’m kind of the middleman,” McGaw added.

Ed Silvetti is authority vice chairman.

When he was the executive director for the Southern Alleghenies Planning and Development Commission, the commissioners expected him to keep them apprised of critical matters, Silvetti said.

It should work that way in the Water and Sewer Authority, Silvetti said.

“Ideally, the issue (of the deadline) should have been front and center for at least a year,” Silvetti said. “Maybe two.”

There should have been a flow chart that laid out the preferred timing for the various steps in the project, including planning, design, bid advertisements and the awarding of contracts, Silvetti said.

“We (could have) live(d) with a tight time frame,” although not an impossible one, he said.

As it was, “the siren went off” only last week, Silvetti said.

“That was a shocker,” he said.

Even if authority officials had been hypervigilant about the ARPA deadline, they might have been pressed for time to beat it, according to Cunningham.

The authority received the ARPA funding around the end of 2023, according to Mirror records.

It took significant time to obtain the CDBG match money, according to Cunningham.

There were also issues with sewer planning, Cunningham said.

The state Department of Environmental Protection initially said the authority’s prior sewer planning would suffice for the project, but when it was time to move on it, the department reversed course, adding work, Cunningham said.

There are about 225 households that would be served if all three phases are done, according to Cunningham.

There are many failing septics among them and others that could fail soon, according to officials, including Luke Helsel, sewage enforcement officer for the Blair County Sanitary Administrative Committee, who was at Tuesday’s meeting.

The soils in the area are not good for traditional septic systems, Helsel said.

The households along Reservoir Road are also on wells, which are vulnerable to pollution from septic systems, Silvetti said.

The vast majority of the Reservoir Road households haven’t gotten in touch with the township regarding the proposed project, Cunningham said.

There is a small, vocal group that opposes the project, generally because they’ve recently invested in sand mound septic systems that can work despite the poor native soils.

Sand mounds can cost from $10,000 to $30,000, according to an online source.

Typically, after making such an investment, those families don’t want to be obliged to hook up to a public sewer line, which would require them to cover the cost of a lateral — perhaps $2,000 to $5,000 — plus a tap fee, then a monthly sewer bill.

Other households with failing or uncertain systems are “desperate” for public sewer, according to Cunningham.

Having the reliability of public sewer increases property values and makes selling properties a more predictable matter, officials said.

For now, the Reservoir Road project is in “limbo,” Wible said.

If the whole project implodes, the DEP will pressure Helsel to investigate the malfunctioning septics, Helsel predicted.

If that transpires, Amigh will do his best to keep families from being forced out of their homes, Amigh said.

The construction cost for Phase 1 is $2.1 million, according to Cunningham. For Phase 2, the cost is $3.5 million, and for Phase 3, about $3 million.

The total cost of phases 1 and 2 together — including engineering, construction, inspection and legal costs — is $7.26 million, Cunningham said.

Phase 3 is likely never to get done, even if Phases 1 and 2 are completed, Silvetti said.

The overall project is needed, officials have said.

“These projects are always difficult to navigate,” Cunningham said. “I don’t know that there’s blame to be assigned.”

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