Newtown municipal authority stops plan to build wastewater treatment plant

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On Tuesday, the Newtown Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority board voted 3-2 to halt plans to build its own wastewater treatment plant in Newtown Township.

The Newtown sewer authority proposed the plant as a way to alleviate costs to taxpayers in the face of rate hikes by the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority. To construct the plant, the authority bought 17.5 acres on Lower Silver Lake Road, near the township’s border with Newtown Township.

But when Middletown Township residents less than half a mile away from the proposed site heard about the project, they started organizing to stop it. They were concerned about smell and potential environmental contamination, and worried about the impact the plant would have on their property values.

Bill Everett, a member of the Stop the Newtown Sewer Plant steering committee, said opponents’ work isn’t over until the project is canceled.

“When the verdict came to stop it, I was disappointed,” he said. “I was kind of angry, because there’s so much, so much evidence here that they really should just cancel it.”

But Elen Snyder, a Newtown Township supervisor and board member of the Newtown sewer authority, said the plan is stopped “completely.”

“We voted to completely stop this sewer project, which was not a popular idea, but a necessary idea,” she said. “So we are not going to build a sewer facility on the piece of land that we have gotten.”

Snyder said the sewer authority board will discuss next steps for the purchased land with its solicitor.

She said as a township supervisor, she is still concerned about limited sewer capacity and development options, which was one of the reasons the Newtown authority wanted to build the plant in the first place.

The Newtown sewer authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment.