During last night's meeting of the Nesquehoning Water Authority, authority President David Hawk provided a timetable of project milestones that was given to them by Alfred Benesch & Co.

According to the update there appeared to be no issues with the requested DEP permit and said permit should be received "shortly." If the permit is received by the end of November, bid packages could be sent out in January of 2013 to be received and awarded in February. The notice to proceed can then be issued in March.Benesch and Co. will apply for an extension on the grant that the authority has received to cover most of the expenses. The grant presently expires in June of 2013 and the project is expected to be completed by October of next year.A letter was received by the authority from Convergence Communications regarding the status of the new FCC mandated control system radios. According to Convergence they are waiting on the FCC to return a modified license to the authority. The FCC is "swamped" with applications and what was once a 45-day process is now at 90-120 days.Convergence has the necessary equipment for the authority and is prepping it for installation while awaiting the FCC license. Convergence will keep the water authority informed and may seek approval to change over to the new radios while the license is in progress.Secretary Denny Creitz showed authority members a rotted bolt that was recently discovered and suggested to water authority members that future street work should include digging down to check the condition of valves and bolts. According to Creitz, the valves may have been equipped with a bad batch of bolts and that it would be much less costly to check and replace, if necessary, when the street is already dug up than to wait until they "blow apart."He also noted that the valves themselves look "brand new" and that the problem is with the bolts. President Hawk said that they will consider the suggestion.In other matters, water authority Supervisor Mark Lopata, announced that hydrant flushing will take place during the week of Oct. 22.