The Carbon County Planning Commission has approved funding for the Palmerton Municipal Authority's proposed new water storage tank and booster pump improvements project.

"The Planning Commission gave us their OK, and we submitted a grant application. It will probably be a few months before we hear anything now," Rodger Danielson said at Thursday's Palmerton Borough Council meeting.The authority has submitted plans for the installation of a new tank, capable of holding between 100,000 to 150,000 gallons of potable water, at the end of Alley L north of the 800 block of West Edgemont Avenue."We're going to look at the time and see what we can afford. It would be nice to go for more, but it is based on a 100,000-gallon tank. That's the minimal amount that we would like to have there," Danielson said."Currently, there is no water holding capacity which would serve in case of a fire or electrical outage affecting the pump. The proposed new tank should help stabilize water availability during times of high use," Danielson said in a letter to the Planning and Development office.According to the project application, approximately 125 homes along West Edgemont Avenue are served by a 5 horsepower electric booster pump, "necked down to a 1-inch coupling at the pump," that equates to the homes being "supplied through an opening the size of a large garden hose."The hydrants along the Edgemont Avenue line "serve no effective purpose for fire protection." The report details that if the booster pump were to go down, there is no reservoir to draw from, and that the gravity flow through the booster bypass would be too weak to run modern household appliances.The installation of a new tank would guarantee a water source for emergencies and daily use, and based on an average household usage of 300 gallons per day, the smaller tank could supply the area for 2.5 days. The 150,000-gallon tank could stretch the mark to four days."We believe that it will give them a much more stable water system," Danielson said.The report also states that the tank and pump station could actually result in an elevation of property values for the West Edgemont homes."Your utilities make a difference on retail values," Danielson said.Preliminary cost estimates peg the smaller storage tank at $200,000, and the pump station with an emergency generator at $100,000. The project's total budget is being estimated at $476,800, including a 10 percent contingency. The grant that Danielson mentioned will cover approximately 85 percent of the project's cost.The entire project could easily be completed within a year of award,as the site is readily accessible, and engineering for the area is "straightforward and not complex."