LANCASTER TWP — Three municipalities met Wednesday evening to formulate questions about a sewer authority's planned expansion.

Harmony, Lancaster Township and Zelienople officials discussed their concerns for nearly two hours Wednesday about Western Butler County Authority's proposed, but now rescinded, Act 537 plan — which included a pump station replacement and a water pollution control facility upgrade — and formulated questions to send to the authority.

During the meeting, which was moderated by outgoing interim Lancaster township manager John Trant, the officials largely echoed questions they had posed to the authority earlier in the process. But, as Trant said, they hope they will receive more detailed answers independent of the proposed plan.

Greg Such, president of Harmony Borough Council and the borough's representative at the authority, said he believed the session was worthwhile.

“A lot of the questions have been asked and they have been answered, but the questions were not asked with the right slant and the answers did not have the expected clarity,” Such said.

The authority's proposed sewage facilities plan failed earlier this year after two of its member municipalities — Lancaster Township and Zelienople — declined to approve it, while Jackson Township and Harmony did. WBCA, in turn, bifurcated the plan into two separate modules — one for the pump station and another for the main facility — that it will submit to the municipalities.

WBCA also suggested, after splitting its plan, the municipalities send representatives to meet with the authority in a steering committee such that the questions could be posed and answers could be provided in a more relaxed setting, rather than their respective engineers or solicitors writing letters to each other.

Don Pepe, Zelienople borough manager, said he thought there was great value in the session, rather than the steering committee, adding “you don't need piecemeal” answers when discussing a more than $70 million control facility project.

Among the topics addressed during the meeting, and the questions the municipalities will pose with a unified front to the authority, were the cost of the plans, whether less costly alternatives have been explored and if a third-party review of the proposals would be necessary or cost-effective.

Lancaster supervisor Tim Zinkham said he had concerns with how the pollution control facility will be financed. The roughly $65-million project, according to the proposed Act 537 plan, would be paid for with tap fees — which come from new buildings paying to be part of the water and sewage infrastructure — comprising about half of the repayment, while regular rates would comprise the other half. What, he asked, would happen if the number of tap fees dramatically fell or stopped completely?

Several of the five Zelienople council members who attended raised concerns about where WBCA's priorities lie. Council president Allen Bayer asked whether it was smart to upgrade the sewage plant to handle a larger amount of sewage when, instead, the amount of sewage could be decreased if the century-old pipes in Zelienople were fixed to let less rainwater into the system.

Among the “action items” worked out during the meeting was to draft a letter to the authority documenting the municipalities' questions and concerns, chief among them what Trant called not providing “Prego-sauce answers”: That is, not referring the questioners to the Act 537 plan or saying the authority worked on it.