Matawan mulls options for future water supply Must decide whether to invest in aging plant or buy from elsewhere BY KAREN E. BOWES Staff Writer "It's time to pay the piper and do something about it or we're going to walk into disaster." - Michael Cannon Councilman MATAWAN - Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink. The borough hopes to avoid this ironic situation by making a relatively quick decision regarding its municipal water plant. The aging facility, capable of pumping out 199 million gallons of water a year, suffers from a problematic infrastructure and may soon become inoperable. At the Aug. 8 Borough Council meeting, Councilman Michael Cannon said he hopes to avoid disaster - i.e., no water at all - by encouraging the borough to make changes now before it's too late. "It's time to pay the piper and do something about it or we're going to walk into disaster," Cannon said. He added, "We've been using rubber bands and gum to keep it together." "It needs about 4 or 5 million dollars worth of work," Cannon reported. According to Cannon, the municipal facility is on its last leg. Recently, $10,000 was spent to repair a secondary pump in case the primary pump fails. But even this repair may not be enough to keep the plant operational, Cannon said. Cannon laid out four possible options for the plant. The first option is to rebuild the structure at a cost of approximately $5 million, to be paid for in installments of $692,000 over 20 years, Cannon said. Because the water plant can only operate between May and September, the borough currently purchases the remainder of its water supply from the New Jersey American Water (NJAW) company. Cannon said another possibility is to purchase all of the borough's water from NJAW. This would end up costing an estimated $871,500 a year, Cannon said, plus the $500,000 the borough is already paying the company. The discrepancy in costs is because water costs fluctuate depending on the time of year, Cannon said on Monday. Another option is to continue to buy half of the borough's water supply from NJAW at approximately $500,000 and half from the Marlboro Township Municipal Utilities Authority (MTMUA) at $475,500 per year. Finally, for an estimated total of $558,100 per year, the borough could purchase all of its water from the MTMUA. "We've decided to hire an attorney to try to get these numbers down," Cannon said. Although the plant is regulated by the state to pump out 199 million gallons of water each summer, the borough never meets this amount, Cannon said. The leftover allocation amount could potentially be sold to an interested party, Cannon said, noting the borough has already received requests from NJAW to buy or lease the borough's remaining 20-50 million gallons of water. "The amount that they want, even if we rehab the plant, we could not produce that amount," Cannon said on Monday. "It's too small to produce 199 million gallons." Cannon worries that the state may lower the borough's allocation amount next year. "It's a commodity to the borough," Cannon said. "It's money in the bank. We don't know if they'll reallocate us the 199 million gallons." Back in September 2006, the council also discussed the future of the water plant. At that time, Borough Engineer William White reported that maintenance required to the facility had not been kept up in nearly 30 years. White was not present at the Aug. 8 meeting.