The Franklin General Authority will face daunting decisions in the coming months now that the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PennVEST) has extended an offer for a loan to cover the cost of the impending 15th Street CSO action plan.
Gov. Tom Wolf announced on behalf of PennVEST Wednesday that the authority had been approved for a loan of $4,347,750, a number that would cover not only the project itself but the engineering behind it.
“We were kind of hoping to get a mix of grant and loan,” said city manager Tracy Jamieson.
The loan would come with a 1% interest rate for 20 years if the authority were to accept the offer from PennVEST,
The authority could, however, reject the offer in an attempt to receive grant funding from the agency during its next round of investments.
There is a certain amount of risk that comes with a rejection strategy though due to the somewhat unpredictable nature of PennVEST. Any number of influences could affect how much or how little is offered, including the amount of applicants in the running.
Accepting a loan now could also mean rate hikes for city residents.
During preliminary operating budget talks last week, authority chairman Tim Dunkle conceded that a hike wouldn’t do much good for the authority or city residents as it isn’t known how much would be needed to pay back potential loans.
With a firm dollar amount in hand, that mindset could change as Dunkle and authority members have repeatedly warned of rate increases surrounding big budget projects slotted for the near future.
The 15th Street CSO, or combined sewer overflow, action plan has a potential to break ground in spring 2021.
The project, which was approved by the authority in June 2019, calls for the removal of the CSO watershed’s inflow and infiltration system and requires about 21,000 feet of pipe to be laid.
Five years in the making, the plan focuses on a 2015 violation set down by the state Department of Environmental Protection at the city’s CSO site on the 15th Street hill near the runaway truck ramp.
The violation came after DEP identified the CSO as overflowing too much, too often.
