The aging Autocon panel at the water treatment plant in Slatington is going to get a much-needed boost in communication ability.

The Slatington Borough council approved hiring Essex Service Corp. in Holland, Pennsylvania, to install a new wireless communication system at the plant. The project will cost $19,425.

Council President Bryon Reed said the Autocon panel was installed in 1995, and worked well for a number of years. Its purpose is to regulate the amount of water in the reservoirs, and let in water if the levels get too low. It works through the use of sensors at the reservoirs connected to wiring that runs underground and to the panel.

“A lot of the hard wires have deteriorated over time,” said Borough Manager Dan Stevens. That’s the problem.

It came to a head in December when the panel couldn’t receive the signals through the wiring. The water department staff had to manually monitor the water levels as Reed searched for a repairman. He said he called several companies, but no one knew how to fix it. He also called the company that installed the Autocon panel, but the serviceman said it was too outdated for him to work on it.

“We were out of sources,” he said.

That’s when Reed got a referral for Essex Service Corp., The serviceman came up from the Philadelphia area and fixed it enough to get it working until a more permanent fix could be done.

“He’s a whiz,” Reed said. “He’s a smart cookie when it comes to this.”

This more permanent fix involves putting antennae attached to probes in the reservoirs that will send a wireless signal to the antennae on the Autocon panel.

“This should give us a clean shot of communication,” he said.

Some parts in the panel will also be updated after the initial wireless communication work is completed.

“It’s a big upgrade for us,” Reed said. “It will eliminate overhead wires, problems with trees, and the underground wires.”