Nesquehoning moves on sewer, road projects

Nesquehoning is moving forward on a sewer and road project along Willow Lane.

Last week, borough council voted to award the contract for the replacement of storm drains and sewer lines along Willow Lane to Doli Construction at a cost of $287,328.

The project will be a multiphase project and will take over one year to complete. Once the storm drains and sewer lines are replaced, residents living along this street will be required to install curbing.

After that, paving will be completed, with an anticipated time frame of 2020 or 2021, pending how long the other phases take.

Nesquehoning received a $150,000 state water and sewer grant to cover the sewer line portion of the project.

At first, Councilman Michael Radocha, who is also a contractor, voted no and questioned the bid, believing it came in too high, but after council discussed the plans, he changed his vote to yes.

Radocha said that the borough is spending a lot on sewer based projects this year, which could hit upward of $1 million and urged council to look at some of the upcoming projects to see if there was anything that could be done in house.

In a related sewer matter, work on unit 2 at the sewer plant should be getting underway today. The approximate $500,000 project began last year and was delayed until April after the borough had problems with the contractor Eastern Environmental and work that was completed.

Council said that there are many issues with the work, including the painting of the unit last July, which is already peeling because it wasn’t sealed to manufacturer specifications.

In November, council, the sewer operators, Carbon Engineering and Eastern Environmental met about the problems. At that time, the company was told it would have liquidated damages on the project because of the delays.

At that time, when the April 15 start date was agreed upon, council told Eastern Environmental that if the project wasn’t completed by May 3, as they said it would be, liquidated damages would then continue.

Council plans to talk with Carbon Engineering to see about having someone down there during the work or to take pictures at the end of the day to make sure the project is completed correctly.