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Anyone who has lived with a difficult situation in his or her life can understand the anger, frustration, hopelessness -- even physical and mental pain --that some residents living near the intersection of Kettle Road and City View Street, in Logan Township, are experiencing at this time.
Not only are they stymied by what accurately can be described as a roadblock, but possibly the biggest investment they have made in their lives is faced with the possibility of irreparable financial harm due to a sewer project that heretofore hasn't been able to materialize.
At this time, when anything seems possible, there has to be an answer as to how their current plight can be resolved.
The major question now is whether they can muster the support, clout and expertise that they need -- from someone and somewhere -- to help them identify a workable path and help them pursue it in the most efficient way possible.
State lawmakers representing Blair County in Harrisburg need to take notice of the plight of the people in question and probe possible avenues of potential solutions, while local officials need to dig deep to allow no proverbial stone to be left unturned.
Even U.S. Rep. John Joyce, R-13th District, should study the residents' problem to ascertain whether he can offer or activate possible remedies to get a project for the people in question started.
The bottom line is that these residents should not be left without hope -- a situation, however, that is evolving because no one has been willing to move to the forefront to offer optimism and plausible suggestions for the short term -- instead, just faint hope looking well into the future.
There exists an important foundation reason why the project in question might never be possible, if the mindset of current Logan officials doesn't change. Consider the following paragraph from a July 2 Mirror article headlined "Residents push Logan for public sewer":
"Three years ago, the cost of sewering 15 homes and two lots would have been $225,000, but now a project to serve 11 of those properties would cost $481,000."
This county currently is living with the same kind of scenario with the proposed new prison construction project, which wasn't built when the project would have been much less costly.
The county faced similar cost pressures with the long-delayed courthouse renovations, and the problems currently in play at the Blair County Office of Children, Youth & Families, for which the state has issued a sixth provisional license.
These other cases are rooted in county leaders' reluctance to allocate enough money in the necessary ways to avoid the problems.
Judging from how much the cost of a scaled-back sewer project has increased, it seems possible that the total project never will be financially feasible, despite the project being part of the township's Act 537 sewer plan, which runs to 2038.
If not tackled until 2035, for example, will the sewer project be a $1 million endeavor instead of a $481,000 one and, again, be judged too expensive to undertake?
It is understandable that pressures exist from the fact that the Logan sewer operation is self-supporting and, as such, doesn't involve tax dollars from residents. However, would it be feasible and make better sense for the Logan sewer operation to become part of another similar operation, like Altoona's, for instance, to acquire more clout in terms of what needs to be done.
The situation at Kettle and City View is only one of Logan's sewer needs, including some more important than the one in question.
Do other sewer and water operations and departments have ideas that would help Logan address its needs? Others should be consulted, as well as the state.
Some people take great pride in making impossibility reality.
That is the kind of attitude that the Logan project in question badly needs.