Six out of seven Slatington Borough Council members met Monday night for a special meeting to hire an engineering firm that will help update and repair the aging sewer plant.

After an hourlong executive session, council voted on hiring ARRO Engineering of Wyomissing as the engineering firm the borough will use to get the plant in proper working order.The utility building has been fraught with troubles over the years with the borough struggling to get the structure into compliance. Two firms were chosen by wastewater treatment plant director Duane Szczesnyto pitch their companies to the board: Environmental Engineering and Management of Kulpsville and ARRO.The president of Environmental Engineering and Management, Edward Gillette Jr., spoke first in the interview."We are a specialty company with expertise in the municipal and industrial wastewater/water industry. We offer municipal wastewater design and troubleshooting. We've worked with over 100 municipal and industrial facilities and work on municipal planning and design."Gillette said the company has over 35 years of experience in the wastewater process."You have what we call a classic PA trickling filter plant. Getting it up to code is one set of issues, but looking down the road, the plant will have problems. Like most boroughs in Pennsylvania, you don't have a lot of money," Gillette said.He told the board, "If you choose to be proactive, you would take out the trickling filters and put in sludge tanks. Having digesters in a plant this big is absurd. We all know those new standards are coming. Those standards will be here in the next 10 years, and they're very expensive to meet.""We have larger issues we need to look into," Szczesny said."You have an operator who knows what he is doing, but you have to meet the EPA standards," Gillette said."Unfortunately the people who make the rules don't have to fund it," Councilman David Schnaars said."And they don't care. The EPA doesn't care how much money you spend, just that you meet the standards," Gillette said.ARRO took the podium next."We are a full-service firm," Vice President Matthew Warfel said. "We have been around since 1946 and have worked with over 40 organizations and 170 municipal organizations."Though the company representatives agreed with Gillette, they had different thoughts on how to bring the plant up to date. Warfel introduced Kelly Brenner, an engineer specialist for ARRO who spoke about the changes the firm would make to the plant."The plant has a history of violations and trouble meeting requirements in general," Brenner said."The discharge into the Lehigh River, which was recently changed to protected water, will mean additional requirements in the future."Szczesny said, "The plant works, we just have to help it and assist it to work even more."Brenner, Warfel and second Vice President Alex Morrison agreed."If we can give you the tools to make your life easier, we will," Morrison said. "To move forward we will utilize the equipment you have and get you the most bang for your buck."We will create a short-term and long-term plan with the costs, a kind of blueprint, for you," Brenner said. "We're not going to come out and build a brand-new plant. We're going to work with you and utilize what you already have and keep costs in mind. We'll make process changes instead of completely starting over.""We are into restoring what you've already got," Morrison said. The closest plant the firm has worked with is Palmerton, where the engineers used a similar plan to get that borough's plant running smoothly."We don't need an operator. We need assistance fixing the infrastructure that we already have," Szczesny said.