Farmington Avenue - "Temporary Inconvenience / Permanent Improvement"

Beginning in the Spring of last year, our community broke ground on the most massive and important construction project we have seen since RT#100 sliced through our township a generation ago. Three separate and necessary infrastructure improvement projects to water, sewer, and gas lines, required digging up Farmington Avenue from Pottstown to the Halfway House. This work extended beyond to some side streets and across RT#100 to cont’d. on page 3 the whole Greengate Subdivision. When completed later on this Spring, over 200 homeowners, living in an area where the ground water is contaminated with cancer-causing TCE, will be connected to safe public water supplies. Over 90 other homeowners will be able to connect to public sewer service and eliminate the many failing on-lot septic systems that created a health hazard and nuisance in their neighborhoods. And the public at large will be assured that the PECO gas supply lines have been upgraded to enhance safety.

Coordinating and scheduling the many different private contractors, public entities, and funding streams, has been a major project in itself. Our Township Manager and Public Works Department have made every effort to keep the work and traffic moving along, but some amount of inconvenience has been inevitable. Work continued throughout the winter season and we all had to contend with navigating over or around the patchwork quilt of temporary paving that had been left in the wake of the various work crews. However, we will all be shortly rewarded for our ‘sacrifice’ as Farmington Avenue gets its own “EXTREME MAKEOVER” with a full-depth reclamation and final surfacing that will make it better than new.

You should be happy to know that, for the most parFt, the cost of this significant and expensive undertaking, with a price tag in excess of 4 million dollars, did not require any general tax increase. The water line installation, including lateral hookups to each individual house, is being paid through State funds acquired through the Department of Environmental Protection. The upgrades to the sewer line, which included vital and cost-saving inflow and infiltration remediation, are being subsidized primarily by private developers, which reduces the impact on customer sewer rates. And the gas line installation was financed entirely by PECO.

With the completion of this project, hundreds of township homeowners and their families, who were facing potential health hazards, will now be able to enjoy their property without fear of environmental contamination. Also, homes that had become unmarketable will once again become secure investments. The whole community will benefit as the troubles of our neighbors are relieved.