The long-awaited expansion of the Hawleyville municipal sanitary sewer system will start with the construction of a sewage collector system at Midway Home Estates, a mobile home park at 160 Mt Pleasant Road (US Route 6), Fred Hurley, town public works director, said May 18.

Workers for the sewer project could be seen that day in the mobile home park and on nearby Violette Road, where materials for the Hawleyville sewer expansion will be stored.

Mr Hurley said that Violette Road, which links Mt Pleasant Road to Pocono Road, will be closed to through-traffic while construction materials are stored there for the $3.8 million Hawleyville sewer construction project.

On May 20, Mr Hurley said he expected the project would begin "within two weeks," necessitating the temporary blocking of the intersection of Pocono and Violette Roads.

The overall sewer benefit assessment for the multi-unit mobile home park is $155,261, while a conventional single-family house sewer benefit assessment in the project is $14,400.

The gravity-powered sewage collector system to be built at the mobile home park will be part of a sewer expansion project, which largely will consist of low-pressure sewer lines powered by grinder pumps. Low-pressure sewer lines require trenches only four to five feet deep. Areas with gravity-powered sewers would require deeper trenching.

Mr Hurley said project planners are developing a construction sequence for the sewering project, which will serve 22 properties. After it commences, the project is scheduled to be completed in 90 days.

The Hawleyville sewer expansion project is intended to stimulate economic development near the Exit 9 interchange of Interstate 84, an area that has long been envisioned by local officials as the site of economic growth. There are several large undeveloped land parcels in that area.

Centerplan Construction Company of Middletown is the contractor for the Hawleyville sewer expansion. The town received 11 bid submissions. Centerplan was the low bidder.

The project includes three major components: the basic sewer extension project, the construction of a sewage collector system at Midway Home Estates, and the extension of a sewer line to 90 Mt Pleasant Road.

Because the project is intended to stimulate economic development, property owners with holdings adjacent to the planned sewer lines may connect to sewer system or not connect, based on their preference.

The expanded sewer system would extend from its current terminus at 164 Mt Pleasant Road eastward to the intersection of Mt Pleasant Road and Hawleyville Road. From that intersection, the sewer system would extend northward alongside Hawleyville Road, and would also extend eastward alongside Mt Pleasant Road to 90 Mt Pleasant Road, where there is a 34-acre parcel that is expected to be developed.

The expanded sewer system would provide wastewater disposal for a planned mixed-use complex off Hawleyville Road, which would hold a 180-unit rental apartment complex, a church, and a diner.

The Hawleyville sewer system, which started operation in 2001, discharges wastewater to a regional sewage treatment plant in Danbury.

The town built its much larger gravity-powered central sewer system in the Borough and adjacent areas to resolve longstanding groundwater pollution problems caused by failing septic systems. The central sewer system, which discharges wastewater at a Commerce Road sewage treatment plant, started operation in 1997.