Local News
Project gets third Green Energy grant
Will reduce hike in user fees
HERMITAGE — Hermitage Municipal Authority has been awarded a $350,000 grant for the sanitary sewer plant expansion, the third state grant earmarked for the project.
The $350,000 PA Green Energy Works! Biogas Projects grant was announced Wednesday by state Sen. Robert D. Robbins, Salem Township, R-50th District, and state Rep. Mark Longietti, Hermitage, D-7th District.
“It’s good news,” said City Manager Gary P. Hinkson. “It will reduce the dollars that need to be financed and that will have a good impact on what our rate structure has to be.”
Green Energy Works! grants support biogas projects that generate power and thermal energy, the legislators said.
As part of Hermitage’s project, the authority will upgrade its anaerobic digestion system to “cook” sludge and food and agricultural waste to create a gas made up of methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The gas can be burned to generate electricity, which will be used at the plant and can be sold to Pennsylvania Power Co.
The treated sludge will be of such a high quality that it can be handled and sold or given away as fertilizer or fill, possibly eliminating the need to truck treated sludge to a landfill, officials said.
The project also will, among other things, replace the chlorine disinfection system for waste water with an ultraviolet system, and expand the plant so that it can handle 7.7 million gallons a day, up from 5 million gallons a day.
Officials have said that any grant money they receive will reduce a hike in user fees that will be implemented in 2010. Officials have not determined how much rates will go up.
The authority already has been awarded a $1 million for the project, and a $375,000 grant that is to go toward the digestion system. The Green Energy Works! also is restricted to help with the digester
The estimated expansion project cost is $32 million with primary funding coming from a Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority low-interest loan — the agency known as PENNVEST is expected to act in March on the city’s application — and borrowing money from investors through a bond issue.
Officials already have ordered the digestion equipment for more than $3.8 million and plan to advertise for bids for the rest of the project in the spring.
The plant treats waste from 7,700 homes and businesses in Hermitage, Wheatland, Shenango Township, South Pymatuning Township and Clark.
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Commissioners formally move to raise sewer fees
Hermitage commissioners introduced an ordinance Wednesday to increase sanitary user fees.
Residents tapped into the Hermitage Municipal Authority lines now pay $95 a quarter. That rate will bump up to $105 a quarter on Jan. 1, under the proposed rate hike.
Two more hikes on Jan. 1, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2013, will result in the rates increasing 50 percent from the current fee. -
Water is on at Forrest Brooke
Water service has been restored at Forrest Brooke Manufactured Home Community after well problems left the 165-unit complex dry Tuesday.
A boil and conserve water advisory has been issued by the DEP and will remain in place until tests confirm the water is safe to drink, Forrest Brooke’s manager Pete Havens said.
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Storm damages trees, wires
Thunderstorms ripped through parts of Mercer and neighboring counties Wednesday night, downing trees and wires and keeping rescue workers on their toes.
A Mercer County 911 dispatcher shortly after 8 p.m. said they were busy with calls across the northern part of the county. He said there had been a few reports of trees falling on homes.
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City leaders open to talks
Sharon officials aren’t opposed to sitting down with their counterparts in Farrell to revisit the idea of combining the two struggling cities.
“It never costs a penny to talk and there’s no (idea) that’s not worth looking at,” Sharon councilman Ed Palanski said. “I think it would be foolish to oppose looking at the idea.”
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Murphy’s Law doesn’t faze regional planners
A complicated, two-day public meeting blitz in 32 counties ran headlong into Murphy’s Law in Mercer County on Tuesday.
The group Power of 32 are looking to re-write the regional map and create a grand, 15-year strategic economic plan for the 32 counties in four states that make up the Ohio River basin and greater Pittsburgh area.
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Forrest Brooke copes with water outage
Residents of Forrest Brooke Mobile Home Community in Jefferson and Lackawannock Townships woke up Tuesday morning to find they didn’t have any water.
Managers of the park could not be reached for comment, but residents said they were told they won’t get water service back for at least another month.
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City facing bleak financial reality
LaVon Saternow has been Farrell’s city manager since 1992. Shortly after she took the job, Sharon Steel, the city’s economic engine, officially closed down.
Since, the city has struggled to remain solvent and Mrs. Saternow said it is facing its worst financial crisis in her tenure.
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Near-complete addition to let man come home
Although the weather delayed the start of Penny and Paul Strechansky’s construction project by about three weeks, the end of the sawing, hammering and stapling is in sight.
“It should be done by the middle of next week,” Strechansky said of the 15-by-20 foot addition being built onto the back of his garage in Hermitage, which will be the new home of his grandson, David Johnson.
Johnson was critically injured in a car crash June 19, 2009, on what is now Interstate 376 in Lawrence County. The crash rendered Johnson, who just turned 21, blind and brain damaged. He is unable to care for himself.
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Man prison-bound for role in drug buy shooting
It may never be known for certain who fired the two fatal shots that killed a Sharon teen on Nov. 6 on Wallis Avenue during a botched drug deal, prosecutors have said.
But Christopher Swogger, 24, Sharon, was fingered by at least one other suspect as the one whose bullets killed John B. Hosey III, 18, of 422 Meek St. Swogger was sentenced Monday.
Swogger was sent to prison for 1 1/2 to 3 years for having a firearm without a license, ending his role in the criminal prosecutions of the drug deal turned shooting.
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Farrell, Sharon to revisit merger
Times are tough.
In Farrell Monday night, city council heard a grim financial report from City Manager LaVon Saternow.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” Mrs. Saternow said. “We could conceivably run out of cash by the end of the year. I don’t know how to put it more bluntly.”
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Commissioners formally move to raise sewer fees
