WILLIAMS ANNOUNCES $126,250 DEP PAYMENT TO ADDRESS SEWER OVERFLOW PROBLEMS IN BRIDGEPORT

HARRISBURG, December 4, 2002 - - Senator Connie Williams (D-Montgomery/Delaware) today announced that the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has made a payment of $126,250 to the Borough of Bridgeport, Montgomery County. The funds will go toward the cost of planning, design, and construction to correct combined sewer overflow problems in the borough.

The funds were made available under DEP’s Safe Water Grant program. Payments to the Borough of Bridgeport now total $190,567.26 from the total grant award of $2,000,000.

"The Borough of Bridgeport has a combined sanitary and storm sewer system with combined sewer overflows to the Schuylkill River and the Schuylkill Canal," Williams said. "The problem is that wastewater generated in the Borough combines with storm water runoff during wet weather events which creates sewer overflow problems."

Williams said that a portion of the runoff is treated at the Borough’s wastewater treatment plant located on River Road. Flows in excess of the treatment plant’s capacity are discharged to the river and the canal.

A program has been developed by the Borough to address requirements DEP has imposed to ensure the quality of Bridgeport’s water and environment. The program includes: a technical evaluation of the system and a characterization of water flows to determine and implement future control measures, documentation of how the Borough will address the controls, and the commitment to an implementation of the measures.

The program has been separated into two phases. The first phase is an engineering and technical evaluation including: a survey of the sewers, the preparation of a base record plan, internal inspection of the system, sampling of the system, flow metering of the system, rainfall gauging, the evaluation of the regulator chambers, and minor construction efforts to abate the most serious problems.

The information gathered in the first phase of the program will then be used to determine the extent of the work in the second phase. The second phase may involve the construction of separate sewer systems or other measures to better control sewer overflows during wet weather events.

"The cooperative endeavor between DEP and the Borough of Bridgeport made possible by this funding will result in pollution prevention and protection of our water," Williams said.