The Franklin Township Supervisors recently held a ribbon cutting for the newly constructed Lairdsville Sanitary Sewer System, according to a news release. Hosted alongside Century Engineering and Lycoming County Water and Sewer Authority (LCWSA), the three entities offered thanks and appreciation to the many partners who worked together to complete the project.

The Village of Lairdsville, a typical small, rural community, consists of homes, a school, and a few businesses clustered closely together with individual, private water supplies and onlot sewage disposal systems, the news release said. John Bickhart, LCWSA engineering services manager, said that Franklin Township was required by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) to address malfunctioning onlot sewage disposal systems which prompted the need for a public sanitary sewer system. After Franklin Township completed the planning and design phase of a sanitary sewer system, the project shifted to funding, design and construction.

Franklin Township, together with LCWSA and Century Engineering, sought various sources of funding to alleviate the potential financial burden on the community, according to the news release.

Olivia Lopatofsky, LCWSA project engineer, described the various funding sources that have supported the project. Early in the process, the Lycoming County Commissioners and SEDA-COG supported the project with an original allocation of $1,069,301 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding, the news release said.

After an unsuccessful attempt at USDA funding, Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PENNVEST), which provides low-interest loans and grants for new construction or improvements to drinking water, stormwater or sewage treatment facilities, awarded the project $2,757,804 in grant funding, the news release said. However, with construction bids exceeding the project estimates, the Lycoming County Commissioners recognized the need to further assist with the shortfall and provided a mix of grant and loan funds to the Township to avoid as much debt service for the system as possible. In early 2023, additional CDBG and COVID Response funding was awarded to the project with $178,358 of grant funds for Sewer System construction costs, according to the news release.

A separate piece of CDBG funding is also in place for qualifying low to moderate income homeowners for lateral assistance.

The bids were opened in August of 2021 with construction costs totaling $3.9M. The four contractors — Performance Construction Company, Greenland Construction Inc., Hayden Power Group, and PSI Pumping Solutions, Inc. — were thanked publicly for their efforts and for all that they overcame during construction.

Offering appreciation on behalf of the supervisors, chairman Victor Marquardt thanked the offices of Representative Joe Hamm and Senator Gene Yaw, the Lycoming County Commissioners, SEDA-COG, PENNVEST, Tom Randis of the PADEP, Century Engineering and LCWSA.

“This is a project of cooperation — from the local level, to our County, to the Commonwealth — everybody had a part in making this happen here in the Village of Lairdsville. A lot of credit goes to our local leaders who led from the front” Hamm said in the press release.

The new Lairdsville Sanitary Sewer System will serve approximately 50 connections and consists of gravity sewer main, a portion of low pressure forcemain, a public sewer pumping station, and a 25,000 gallon per day premanufactured wastewater treatment plant.

According to the news release, commissioner Rick Mirabito said that “investments in infrastructure are investments in our people and in our communities. Today it’s our community. Tomorrow it’ll be a different community. The important thing is for us to understand that we are all part of a commonwealth and part of a nation, and what we do in one small community we do in another. And together we build a strong community that way.”