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Public works explains Chapter 94 sewer report and citywide flow projections
Summary
Public Works staff reviewed the city’s annual Chapter 94 report, explaining it looks back five years and ahead five years to project wastewater flows and help identify capacity or collection-system needs. Staffers said the report feeds planning decisions, highlights redevelopment impacts, and noted Riverdale remains off public sanitary sewer.
Deb Hogue of the City of Reading’s public works division gave the Planning Commission an overview April 22 of the city’s Chapter 94 municipal-wasteload report and how it informs sewer planning.
"The chapter 94 report is an annual PA DEP requirement," Deb Hogue said, explaining the report looks back five years and projects the next five to identify potential overloads that require design and construction work. Hogue said the report aggregates information from contributing municipalities because Reading owns the collection system and treatment plant while neighboring jurisdictions operate portions of their own systems.
Hogue said the city uses development proposals and planning commission submissions to forecast where new flows may come from and that projected flows from redevelopment often differ from greenfield scenarios. She said planners recently compared long-term historic averages and found only modest net differences in some projections versus consultant estimates, noting changes in building use and infiltration can affect local flows.
Commissioners and staff discussed Riverdale, which Hogue and Jerome Skrinkowski said currently lacks sanitary sewer service and storm sewers; the transcript discussion identified roughly 125 existing or potential units in Riverdale that would need connections if the city or municipalities agreed to extend service. Hogue said prior reviews decades ago concluded political and intermunicipal-agreement barriers had prevented system extension at that time, and any future connection would require coordination and possible pump-station work.
Hogue described the practical timing between plan approval and when the city would see new flows at the plant: projects approved now may not produce measurable wastewater increases for one to four years depending on construction and occupancy timelines. She encouraged planning commissioners to notify staff when projects are "fast-tracking" so the Chapter 94 projections can be updated.
The commission used the briefing to discuss billing and intermunicipal agreements; Hogue said municipalities pay by metered gallons under existing agreements and that calibration and certification procedures are in place to keep billing fair.
No formal action was taken; the presentation was informational and intended to help the commission and staff coordinate on future plan reviews and flow projections.
