Vernon weighs option on pump stations

VERNON — Vernon officials are weighing next steps to move ahead with repairs to sewer Pump Station #2 in the wake of Mountain Creek's bankrupty filing last month.
Mayor Harry Shortway at Monday's council meeting said he's eager to move forward with rebuilding the pump station, and indicated the township cannot afford to wait to see the results of Mountain Creeks's bankruptcy proceedings.
Mountain Creek's owners — Mountain Creek Management LLC — are contractually obligated to make repairs to Pump Station #2 per a 2012 agreement with the town. Under that contract, repairs were to have been made in 2013, but no work has been undertaken by Mountain Creek to date. The mayor and council have discussed at previous meetings how best to compel Mountain Creek into action considering the facility's state of dangerous disrepair, but the resort's Chapter 11 filing in May cast the future of Mountain Creek's obligation into doubt.
The timeline for the necessary repairs has been given as taking at least 18 months. With bankruptcy proceedings that could drag on over the course of a years-long timeline, Shortway said that would put completion of work on Pump Station #2 as much as four years out.
“Say this (bankruptcy case) takes two years. I can't wait two years,” Shortway said. “You go back I think it was in 2005 or 2007, they were talking about replacing it back then, and they've just let it go. I'm not going to let it go.”
On Monday, Shortway said township officials, including Municipal Utility Authority Executive Director John Scerbo are pursuing an Asset Management program through the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust that also offers reduced interest rates financing as well as potential partial loan forgiveness for select projects. Scerbo has submitted an application for the program, but that remains under review by the Trust, officials said. The other option, Shortway indicated, would be for the town to go out to bond itself for the project costs.
Shortway noted the Pump Station #2 repair project in 2013 carried an estimated cost of $1.2 million to $1.5 million. In the intervening years, engineers have said that figure may have jumped as much as 15 percent, he reported.