CONNOQUENESSING TWP — Many township residents still aren’t pleased with the municipality’s Act 537 sewage plan, after a revision process started last year reached the same conclusion as the initial proposal.

Supervisors held a public information meeting Monday night at the National Guard Armory on Kriess Road, and dozens of residents turned out to listen — with some voicing their opposition to the plan a second time.

The township’s multimillion-dollar proposal to build a sewage treatment plant in the township has been a flashpoint since early 2016, when officials published a plan that called for a $14.8 million investment in a 5-year project to construct a treatment plant at the corner of Dick Road and Boy Scout Road.

Last March, when the township hosted a public comment meeting on the plan, many residents took issue with costs associated with the project and what they said was the secretive way the plan was developed.

Those concerns were reprised Monday, with some residents criticizing the township for poor planning surrounding the meeting, which was advertised in a legal notice published Friday. Officials also did not have a microphone at Monday’s meeting, which left some residents struggling to hear details of the plan being presented by Senate Engineering, the township’s engineering firm.

The plan proposal, in its latest form, isn’t much different from its first iteration. Engineers said they had considered two new alternatives — sending sewage to Evans City, or moving the location of the proposed treatment plant — but reached the same conclusion: building a facility at the intersection of Boy Scout Road and Dick Road was the best and least-expensive option.

The revised plan pegged the cost of the 5-year project at $14.9 million, with estimated tap-in fees of $3,190 and monthly service charges of $70. Those costs were both slightly higher than the original proposal’s.

That conclusion still doesn’t sit well with Charlotte and John Grimme, who own the property at 734 Dick Road where the proposed plant would be built. Last year the couple vowed to force the municipality to seize it through eminent domain — a legal mechanism through which government entities can expropriate private property for public use. On Monday Charlotte Grimme said the couple remains committed to fighting the township’s plan, and criticized the planning process — saying officials weren’t providing adequate access to the plan.

“It is impossible for us to provide meaningful public comment on a plan that has not been made public,” she said.

Residents said the revised plan wasn’t made available at the township’s municipal building until about noon on Monday.

Other residents, like Bob Cichra of Boy Scout Road, said they wanted the township to do more investigating into the possibility of sending sewage outside the township to be treated, or consider instituting regulations that would require property owners to have their on-lot systems — which township officials contend are often poorly-overseen and failing — inspected on a regular basis.

“If the supervisors can’t even get a microphone or advertise this meeting in the proper time frame, why should they be in charge of this project?” Cichra said.

Not everyone was vehemently opposed to the proposal Monday. Ed Tanski, the owner of Buttercup Woodlands Campground, said that as a business owner he welcomes public sewage in the township and sees it as an inevitability.

Tanski also serves as president of the Evans City Sewer Authority, and questioned the township’s cost projections associated with that alternative. But he also said that residents should accept public sewer service as a fact of life and work with the township on the plan rather than simply opposing it.

“The fact is, folks. The DEP is going to force everyone in the township to tap into a public sewer system at some point,” he said. “It’s not if it’s going to happen. It’s not easy. It’s not inexpensive. But it has to be done.”

Currently the township’s plan would only affect the township’s Route 68 corridor as well as areas to the north and south of that road. The rest of the township would “retain its rural character,” according to the plan.

Township officials said they would accept written comments on the plan for the next 30 days, after which they expect to formally adopt the plan and send it to the state Department of Environmental Protection for approval.