Duncannon outlines water, electric and fire‑station projects amid grant applications

Duncannon borough representatives described a package of infrastructure projects the borough is pursuing, saying planning and phased funding are underway for a new fire station, water‑main replacement and a power‑resiliency project.

"We just voted to up our fire tax, to about half of what they asked for," Speaker 3 said, describing a phased approach to fund a planned fire station at a High Street lot where a church was torn down. He said electric upgrades to support modern building systems are part of the project and are under engineering review.

On water infrastructure, the borough is proposing the Lincoln Street water‑main replacement: "approximately 835 linear feet of the borough owned public water systems in 2025," Speaker 1 said, and identified Greg Rogalski, borough engineer, as the contact. Borough officials said leak‑detection sensors and acoustic surveys found significant loss: "We were losing 50% of our water," Speaker 3 reported, and after initial repairs losses dropped to about 25%.

For power resiliency, Duncannon is applying for an ARC grant to install a recloser that would create a looped feed so the borough can switch to an alternate source when an outage occurs. Speaker 3 said the grant application was titled "Preventing borough wide power outages within rural Perry County."

Why it matters: the projects address reliability and public‑safety functions — fire‑response infrastructure, potable water reliability, and boroughwide electric outages that can leave homes and critical services without power for days in some failure scenarios.

Next steps: Duncannon said it is refining grant language with grant writers, soliciting letters of support, and progressing engineering and contractor planning; the borough and county will continue coordination on funding and engineering reviews.