Sewage

A federal judge in Philadelphia yesterday approved a consent decree under which the city will pay federal and state authorities $225,000 in penalties for illegally pumping raw prison sewage into Pennypack Creek. The consent decree, approved by U.S. District Judge Donald W. VanArtsdalen, resolves a lawsuit filed in May 1992 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which sought more than $400,000 in penalties. Half of the $225,000 will go to the federal treasury and the other half to the state's Clean Water Fund.

Among the many renewable energy sources — wind, solar, hydroelectric, biofuels — there is one to which we all contribute that has not yet managed to attract the romantic advocates who have embraced other forms of green energy. We're speaking about the gray river of warmth flowing right beneath our feet: sewage. A Philadelphia company, NovaThermal Energy L.L.C. , wants to heat and cool buildings by tapping into the constant, guaranteed heat contained in wastewater.

The attorney for the developer of the Olde Masters office complex on West Chester Pike has appeared before the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors in an effort to reach a compromise on a sewage-disposal plan that has stalled approval of a land-development application. In a meeting Monday night, Buck Riley, representing developer Alfred Gilbert, said he hoped that his proposal would help resolve the issue that has plagued the development. In March, that issue resulted in a township planning commission recommendation against approval of the plan.

Titus Hoover tethered his horse and buggy out back, in the shade of a spreading maple, and walked into the Snyder County courthouse to wrestle with The World. An old-order Mennonite farmer, Hoover does not believe in the modern ways of The World, or its inhabitants, the people he calls "the English. " His home is not lighted by electricity, his drinking water flows from a hillside spring, his clothes are homespun. When he goes to the bathroom, he visits his outhouse. He seeks, like most of his Amish and Mennonite neighbors here in the hills just west of the Susquehanna River, to live quietly apart.

Lower Bucks is moving in step with the rest of the nation in curbing the effects of industrial sewage. An intermunicipal agreement concerning the pretreatment of industrial sewage was unanimously approved by the Middletown Board of Supervisors during Tuesday night's meeting. The agreement serves to give the Lower Bucks Joint Municipal Authority the legal muscle to enforce pretreatment guidelines in the Lower Bucks municipalities of Bristol, Falls and Middletown Townships and the boroughs of Tullytown and Langhorne Manor.

The borough of Kennett Square held a special meeting Monday night to discuss two issues: sewage and parks. The meeting was only an hour long, and participants came to no conclusions. Votes on both issues were delayed. Borough Council must vote on a request from the Southeastern Chester County Refuse Authority (SECCRA) to expand its landfill operation to include sewage treatment. SECCRA wants to build a $4.5 million facility to process 200,000 gallons of septic-tank waste a day. To do so, it needs unanimous approval from its 10 original members - including Kennett Square - to change its charter from a landfill operation only.

Residents of southern Uwchlan Township are worried that sewage-treatment plans for the huge Churchill development would jeopardize their wells, endanger their health and lower the resale value of their houses. An overflow crowd of about 150 residents, the largest audience at a Uwchlan meeting in years, came to the Board of Supervisors meeting Monday to oppose the plan. They found the supervisors largely in agreement with them. Under the plan, the sewage from the Rouse & Associates project would undergo a month of treatment in four ponds in the far northwestern corner of the tract in West Whiteland, about 500 feet from the Uwchlan border, near the intersection of Ship and Valley Hill Roads.

The sewage for Rouse & Associates' proposed 1,500-acre Churchill project could be handled by an on-site system, reducing the need for an expansion of the Downingtown treatment plant, according to a consultant hired by the Brandywine Conservancy. An on-site system, as described by the influential environmental group at a meeting of local officials on Thursday, also would handle storm-water runoff and would send water into the ground instead of piping it off the site. Jack Sheaffer, a conservancy consultant, presented slides of a self- sufficient system he designed for a 300-acre office park in Chicago.

John Robertson's attempt to stitch together a compromise long-range plan for the Downingtown Area Regional Authority came unraveled Thursday. Work on DARA's plan to meet the sewage disposal needs of the region into the next century to an abrupt halt as committee members fell to squabbling over the details of their chairman's proposal. The committee voted to have the managers of the six DARA municipalities meet with state officials and DARA's consulting engineers to assess where the project stands.

County health officials have urged residents of a Westampton development to install water-saving devices and adopt conservation measures as temporary ways to limit sewage flow into overburdened septic systems. The Health Department determined Aug. 11 that at least seven septic systems on Roberts Drive and Treetop Lane in the nearly two-year-old Saddle Ridge development were health hazards that allowed sewage to flow above ground. There are 32 houses in the Kaybro Associates development on Burrs Road.