The township can now get to work on North Church Street and Hartford Road Water Treatment plants.
Work can now get underway at the North Church Street and Hartford Road Water Treatment plants. This past week, Moorestown Township received its plan approvals from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
The township will go out to bid on the North Church Street and Hartford Road projects at the end of this week, according to Township Manager Thomas Neff. The latest estimates are the Hartford project will cost around $12.4 million and North Church will come in around $18.7 million
“The estimates are based [on] the treatment processes needed at the sites as determined over the course of project development by DEP and our engineer who worked together to ensure the water meets and beats federal and state standards for water quality,” Neff said.
October ushered in a slew of progress for Moorestown’s water delivery systems. In early October, the township officially opened the Kings Highway Water Treatment Plant following $6 million in upgrades to supply 1,600 gallons per minute of treated water to residents.
The Hartford Road plant is currently inactive, and the North Church site is running with temporary filters. The filters are removing 1,2,3 TCP and TCE to undetectable levels, but permanent improvements are needed, Neff said.
Councilman Michael Locatell said in addition to filtering for 1,2,3 TCP and TCE, the plants will also filter out 1,4-Dioxane, which was found in trace amounts at North Church. He said the DEP does not currently have any regulations regarding 1,4-Dioxane, but the township thought it was important to treat for it now.
Locatell said Moorestown will be the first and only municipality in the state to filter for 1,4-Dioxane. He said he anticipates municipalities will have to filter for the contaminant in the near future, so it’s better to build it into the system now.
“We just thought it was smart to be ahead of the curve,” Locatell said.
Locatell said North Church Street will continue to run while construction takes place. He said the current filters will be moved and new filters will be put into place to provide a more permanent form of radiological treatment.
Hartford, on the other hand, will be razed to the ground with the exception of three wells. The township will construct an entirely new building with a filter system resembling that of the one at Kings Highway.
The Hartford plant was built in the 1960s. The plant did not have the adequate equipment to filter iron from the water, and employees had to backwash nearly hourly to keep the plant operational, Locatell said.
For that reason, in the late nineties, the township determined that the Kings Highway and North Church plants were producing enough water to utilize Hartford less, and the plant was later designated inoperational around 2013.
Neff said Hartford’s closure means that the township has to buy more expensive water from New Jersey American Water. Once the two plants are finished, the township will produce more of its own water at a lesser price for residents.
DEP requires the township purchases a minimum amount of water from NJ American. Upon the projects’ completion, the township will need to buy less water from them and can renegotiate its contract when it expires in 2020.
“It’s critical for us to push this project along before we get heavy into our negotiations,” Locatell said.
The township is under an order from DEP to commence construction by Jan. 1, 2019, and all work must be completed by Jan. 1, 2020.
