VILLAS – Lower Township Municipal Utilities Authority (LTMUA) Chairman Brian O’Connor and Executive Director Michael Chapman addressed Lower Township Council at the March 2 meeting, highlighting accomplishments and introducing a plan to add sewer to Erma with a previously unused technology.
Chapman told Council that the MUA will install a vacuum sewer system along Breakwater Road and Seashore Road as a way to quickly bring sewer to the beleaguered area of the township, at a cost of only half of gravity fed sewer systems that exist in the rest of the township.
“We’ll save $15 million using the vacuum system,” Chapman said. He also pointed out that residents would see no difference in the system inside their homes.
Chapman estimated a September 2020 start to the project.
Other highlights of the presentation included Chapman listing the following work finished or underway at the MUA:
- Video assessment of sewer and water pipes throughout the township continues. Damaged and leaking pipes will be replaced or relined as they are discovered. Plans to replace all water pipes in North Cape May will be completed over a 10-year period. State law requires the replacement of a portion of water pipes every year.
- A clarifying tank was renovated at a cost of $519,000 in 2019.
- Electrical renovations, including generators, motor controls and switch gear, is near completion at a cost of $1.4 million.
- 32 pump stations throughout the township, some from the 1950s, will be replaced with submersible pumps that can be removed and worked on above ground.
- Water mains on Bayshore Road will be replaced from Roseanne Avenue to Sandman Boulevard.
- Water towers on Scott Avenue and Shunpike Road have been renovated.
Chapman also noted that water extension from Lower Township to Del Haven, in Middle Township, should commence in 2020, at no cost to Lower Township ratepayers. Councilman Thomas Conrad added that none of the projects mentioned during the presentation would raise rates in Lower Township, which currently has the lowest rates in the county.
