Using creativity with one project, and nearing completion of another, were among the subjects discussed at Tuesday night's Walnutport Authority meeting.

Borough engineer Jason Newhard gave a rundown on recent progress at the borough's new water filtration system, located at one of the borough's old, existing water sources on Alder Drive, just north of Kmart.He said the system's general contractor, Bellview Pump Sales & Services of Walnutport, is completely done with its outside work on-site and about 70 percent done with the mechanical work inside.He also noted that he had a job conference on Nov. 18 with the project's electrician, Barry J. Hoffman Co., out of Allentown, on whom the authority has been waiting for electrical work to be done in order to complete the project.Newhard said Hoffman stated he would be on-site after Thanksgiving, which he was, and should be completed soon.Chairman Ron Kuntz then asked Newhard to discuss recent permission granted from borough council to start on the Oak Street project, from Route 145 west to Lincoln Avenue.Newhard said a grant had been submitted through the borough to the Community Development Block Grant Program for the project, which had originally only involved an overlay."But to get money for an overlay wouldn't really happen, so they were trying to be creative in how they could get the money," noted Newhard. "So you needed the water main replaced on that street, so they rolled your water main in with the overlay, so that wrote you a full overlay once your water main is replaced."Newhard, who noted it is "getting trickier and trickier to qualify for grants," said one aspect needed to qualify for some grants is income-based. He said the fact that Lincoln Manor Apartments, which is Section-8 approved, is located along Oak Street helps."That's a leak-prone area," added Newhard, with Kuntz agreeing that there have been a lot of breaks on that line, including one just last week.Lastly, secretary Bob Treskot and systems manager Michael Newhard noted there have been an inordinate amount of water main breaks within the past month.Newhard added that, since the cold weather has set in, there have been more breaks than are usually seen two-thirds of the way through a winter.He mainly blamed the cast iron pipes, while Kuntz said the fact that the pipes are not laying on stone could also be to blame and engineer Jason Newhard added that the pipes are also not vetted properly.