BUTLER TWP — The Butler Area Sewer Authority is working to prevent aging equipment from impeding its operations.

The authority is borrowing $10 million this year to make upgrades to its Litman Road plant, which was built in 1924.

Thomas Rockovich, BASA executive director, said a priority on the project list is $3.3 million in the improvements to the Headworks building, built in the early 1960s.

“That's just construction costs,” Rockovich said.

Critical equipment used in the sewage treatment process is getting harder to keep working. Joseph Rost, plant superintendent, said the machines that screen objects, which are more than three decades old, are waning.

One of the screeners is down until a welder can be brought in to repair a broken sprocket.

“They're on Band-Aids,” Rost said.

The new machines will fully automate the screening process, which now requires manual removal of collection trays.

Under the new process, the screened debris would be placed on a conveyor.

A third machine, which removes grit, hasn't been operational for several years.

Rockovich said the grit has been moving through the system instead of being removed, which can create problems with other equipment.

The metal panels for the grit removal machine rusted away over the years. Plastic sheets cover the areas that would otherwise be exposed.

After material is removed from the liquid, the flow enters sedimentation tanks, where solids settle to the bottom. The clearer liquid undergoes a biological treatment process.

The solids, called sludge, are pumped to the sludge thickener. Part of the sludge treatment process entails it going through two 25-ton tanks in the Solids Handling building.

“We add lime to the sludge to stabilize it,” Rost said.

The waste material eventually goes through plate presses also dating back to 1980.

The authority is cannibalizing from one press to keep the other one operational because parts are no longer available.

Both presses are set to be replaced by smaller machines requiring less manpower to operate.

Rockovich said the current presses require 24-hour staffing, but the new presses should complete their daily task in an eight-hour shift.

“The authority certainly got its money out of these,” Rost said about the screeners and presses.

Construction costs for upgrades in the Solids Handling building are an estimated $3.9 million.

John Schon, BASA operations director, said retrofitting is no longer practical.

“We're a little constrained,” Schon said.

BASA is undertaking a total of $13.7 million in projects, which include $1.2 million for the replacement of the Negley Avenue pump station, $887,995 for the replacement of the Zeigler Avenue pump station and $707,789 for the replacement of the Jefferson Street sewer.Rockovich said that amount only covers construction. He estimated another $1 million needed for associated expenses, such as engineering costs.To fund some of the work and to repay borrowing, BASA is raising monthly customer rates by $3 in July.Rockovich said the authority would have addressed these issues earlier, but it had to comply with state Department of Environmental Protection consent orders to fix overflow problems.BASA spent more than $40 million to do that.The sanitary system in Butler dates back to the late 1890s/early 1900s, when sewage was discharged directly to surface streams without treatment.The first sewage plant serviced Butler and parts of Butler Township, providing only sedimentation treatment.The first major plant upgrades occurred in 1939.The city and township created the authority in 1962.The authority spent nearly $3 million to expand the treatment facilities to handle a capacity of 5 million gallons per day.A $58.5 million construction project started in 1978. Included in that work was construction of new interceptor lines and pumping stations as well as increasing capacity to 10 million gallons.More work occurred in 1991 for $2.7 million.In addition to system upgrades, the authority expanded its service area.Today, the authority has nearly 15,000 customers in East Butler, much of Center Township and small sections of Connoquenessing, Oakland and Summit Township.In 2015, BASA served an average of 22,605 buildings and treated an average of 6.5 million gallons of sewage daily.