ADAMS TWP — Township water authority officials came to the township supervisors meeting Monday night for direction on payment for expansion projects, but instead received a dressing down from Supervisor Russ Ford regarding a current water line extension.

Authority board member William Pettigrew asked the supervisors whether expansion customers only or all 3,000 water customers should pay for extension projects not funded by developers.

The water authority recently extended a water line on Callery Road, Sturbridge Lane and Kline Avenue into Callery. The expansion began as an extension to Sturbridge Lane residents, who have failing or non-producing wells.

The authority announced in May that those on the new line extension would pay an additional $35 per-month fee to help pay the debt incurred by the authority to complete the $891,000 expansion. Sturbridge Lane residents said the fee is unfair and asked the supervisors for help.

Authority board members said all other water line projects have been developer driven or paid for by extra funds remaining after an extension.

On Monday night, Supervisor Russ Ford told Pettigrew the authority should settle the Sturbridge Lane residents' dispute before considering potential funding sources for future projects.

“We need to get this problem put to bed,” he said.

Ford criticized the authority's decision to add the $35 fee after a September meeting with the supervisors in which the supervisors agreed to back the loan for the project. Ford called the authority's move “absolutely, totally unbalanced” and “a tragedy to taxpayers.”

He also asked the three authority board members at Monday's meeting when the seven questions he asked at the last authority meeting would be answered.

Pettigrew said the authority is waiting to hear from its solicitor regarding the fee, and said he attended Monday's supervisors meeting to discuss future funding for extensions and not the Sturbridge situation.

“I'm glad you got that off your chest,” Pettigrew told Ford.

Pettigrew said there may have been errors on the authority's part regarding its handling of the debt service fee issue, but said he is more concerned with future payment for expansion requests.

Authority board member Larry Kaufman told the supervisors the new fee will cost the new customers $420 per year.

Kaufman said the residents' homeowners insurance would drop by $200 a year because fire hydrants would be available in their neighborhood. In addition, residents will not pay the electric cost for their current well pumps.

Kaufman estimated that with those savings, the monthly cost for the fee would only be $12, or 40 cents per day.

“If they can't find another 40 cents a day, they can't afford our water bill,” Kaufman said.

But Ford insisted the authority should have told the residents of the fee in September and not in May when the project was nearly finished.

Sturbridge Lane resident Marcy Papik told the supervisors that the authority decided to extend the line past her neighborhood and into Callery, and Sturbridge Lane residents are being required to fund it.

Kaufman told Ford that after the board read through the 22 pages of minutes gathered at the May meeting, they would answer his questions posed there.

Kaufman also said BASF, a chemical company on Mars-Evans City Road, and others have paid their own way when they required a line extension.

There was no resolution Monday night on either the new monthly fee or future extension funding issues.