What is a Water Force Main?

Did you read today's Daily Times article recapping the recent city council meeting? Did you stop to ask the same question I asked, What is a Water Force Main and why should I care?

I guess I'm behind in City news but this is the first time I've ever heard of a water force main so I was curious if the council vote was wise or not.

Since they already voted, I figured it didn't make since to ask them now. So, I did a little research to learn what a water force main is. I'm still not sure what's in it for Chester but here is what I found so you can ask intelligent questions about water force mains the next time you see a city council person.

First, let’s make sure we all know who Delcora is. The Delaware County Regional Water Control Authority is the sewage collection, conveyance, and treatment agency for eastern Delaware County. In layman’s terms, it’s a 50 million gallon per day sewage treatment plant.

Chester is a millionaire. Every day we burn 6 million pounds of county trash at Covanta and process 50 million gallons of stuff from county toilets at Delcora.

Delcora have stringent standards to meet when it comes to cleaning up the sewage but when it rains a lot they get overwhelmed and have to divert overflow to the Delaware River. Not nice.

Their engineers came up with solution to construct a new force main to divert overflow to DELCORA’s Western regional Treatment Plant and to the Philadelphia Southwest Water Pollution Control Plant. A sewer force main is just a pressurized pipe system that moves sewage from one point to another usually by pumping it with great force.

Pennsylvania Act 537 requires that every municipality develop and maintain an up-to-data sewage facilities plan. This is probably why Chester is locking into the new force main thingee.

I don’t know what Chester’s options were but I guess we just have to trust that our leaders made the best decision on our behalf...I guess.

Click HERE to read article on City Council's vote