The Butler Area Sewer Authority's latest rejection of adding a member from Center Township and one to serve on behalf of other member municipalities not currently represented reflects a reluctance to change the ways, attitudes and culture of the past.

Unfortunately, the way the authority has conducted its operations in the past is a big reason why BASA is in so much trouble with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). An infusion of two new people, with their experiences, ideas and attitudes would not only help protect the interests of those outlying communities, but also provide a source of new ideas working on behalf of the authority.

Instead, BASA is locked into the fear of the city losing its control over the authority and, with that, the potential for forcing BASA customers in the outlying municipalities to help foot the bill for major repairs and sewer system upgrades in the city.

When BASA expanded its system in Center Township, it imposed a surcharge on township customers that they continue to pay today. City customers are not paying a surcharge for that Center Township work.

Center Township provides about 12 percent of BASA's customers; that should qualify the township for a voice on authority matters.

Despite the authority's attitude of banning representation from outside the city and Butler Township, which holds two of the five BASA votes, representatives from all of the outlying member municipalities not currently represented — in addition to Center Township, East Butler Borough and Connoquenessing, Oakland and Summit townships — should attend all BASAmeetings and make their interest in authority issues felt.

To be most effective, those comments should be constructive rather than confrontational.

In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with Center Township exploring the possibility of operating a sewer system of its own. A study would show whether it would be in township residents' best financial interests to pay for an independent system rather than the projected $60 to $70 a month that BASA might be charging in the not-too-distant future as a result of its system's significant inherited and self-imposed problems.

People throughout the BASA service region have grounds for unhappiness with the DEP's heavy-handedness over the past year in regard to the authority's problems, but BASA could have worked harder to avoid the state-imposed orders under which it currently is being forced to operate.

Had the authority been made up of a broader representation before it got in trouble with the DEP, there might have been the motivation for the authority to at least keep up with all reporting requirements that were in place under a previous BASA-DEP consent order.

According to the DEP, BASA failed to submit some of its reports on time — including important reports dealing with the difficulties BASA was encountering in meeting certain consent-order requirements involving stormwater infiltration into its system.

As the state agency charged with protecting the commonwealth's environment, the DEP was entitled to receive the full cooperation of the authority. It apparently didn't get it.

Now, authority member municipalities currently without an official BASA voice are asking for representation that they already should have — and aren't getting.

Butler Township's representatives on BASA have supported the board expansion proposals over the past two months. The city's representatives have remained steadfast in opposing it and thus have blocked it.

The bottom line is that BASA's problems have become no less daunting amid this continuing loyalty to the ways of the past.

That should be a concern to all of the authority's customers, inside and outside of the city.