The Borough of Tamaqua has decided to review funding options to potentially purchase the 483 streetlights in the borough. Councilman Dan Evans, who has championed the proposal for almost a year, said the borough is in a bit of a time crunch to proceed with the project as PPL has put an Oct. 31 deadline on applying for the initial step in the process.

Evans said that an initial investment of $47,800 is required to proceed with an initial assessment and engineering fees associated with the potential purchase of the lights."This breaks down to approximately $100 per light," he said. "This payment will start a process which involves an inspection and identification of the system. They will bring in a subcontractor to complete the inventory."Evans said part of the process is determining if lights were located in the "safety zone," which council President David Mace said is the area from the transistor on the light pole to the actual fixture.PPL will not allow anyone other than themselves to work on lights located in the safety zone, and those lights would not be eligible for purchase.Evans said the initial engineering study is estimated to take about three months, and would include the "make ready" work needed to be done to each light. He estimated that the borough should get a complete picture of what it will cost per light to purchase and upgrade the lights."It may be a lot, it may be a little," he said, "but we could review the costs per light and opt out of lights that we felt cost prohibitive to update."The borough intends to convert the high-pressure sodium lights to a more energy efficient and cost-effective LED light if the purchase goes through. Ultimately, including the $47,800 nonrefundable, upfront fee, Evans estimated the entire project will run in the neighborhood of $600,000.However, Evans provided a savings breakdown based on the borough's energy numbers from 2015 and said the borough is looking at an eight to nine year payback on the project. While the borough would reduce the usage, with the more efficient LED lights, the major savings would be realized because of the difference in the current SHS tariff on the high-pressure sodium fixtures, which costs the borough approximately $76,000 annually, and would be reduced to about $9,200 annually with the SE tariff imposed on the LED lighting.The actual costs for kilowatts is currently about $11,000 annually, and would be reduced to about $5,500 annually."I recommend pursuing this and securing the financing, and shooting to have it done in 2018," Evans said. "Till the numbers are completely finalized, the payment period would be between eight and half and nine and a half years to pay it back, and at that point, we'd be generating positive cash flow to the borough of about $45,000 a year."Council voted to pursue financing options for the entire project, including the initial $47,800, but has not committed to anything else related to the project at this point.