The Monroe County Board of Commissioners received a $1.25 million grant check for the construction of a new wastewater treatment facility in Snydersville.

Commissioner John Christy, chairman of the commissioners, said, “The county is always looking for ways to bring federal dollars back to Monroe.”

The federal grant was made possible through Community Projects Funding and presented to the commissioners by U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who is a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. In July, the committee passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2026, which addresses water resources needs, such as flood protection, watershed restoration and water infrastructure improvements. Bresnahan also secured $1.25 million in July for Pike County for the extension of the Eastern Pike County Sewer, which will extend wastewater services to Matamoras and Milford boroughs.

The new wastewater treatment facility in Monroe County will service the Burnley Workshop, Monroe County Coroner’s Office, Monroe County Correctional Facility, Hamilton Manor and Stroudsburg Acute Care, which is the former Pleasant Valley Manor Nursing Home.

Monroe County Chief of Clerks Robert Gress said the current wastewater treatment facility will be replaced, not upgraded.

“It’s a new plant that will replace the existing plant, which has met its useful life and would be too costly to replace and continue to operate,” Gress said. “It will operate more efficiently than the current facility and will continue to serve only the current users. There is excess capacity available should the county or other users expand operations.”

The new facility will handle 85,000 gallons of water per day, which is the same amount as the current facility handles.

“Due to assorted regulations, we cannot increase the capacity of the facility,” Gress said.

The operations building for the new facility will be 30 feet x 4 feet with aeration, Gress said. The new headworks building will be 15’x15’, and the prefabricated treatment tanks will be approximately 50’ x 57’.

“It is 80% designed and we are waiting for DEP (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection) final review, which should be done in November,” Gress said.

The cost of the project is estimated to be about $6.8 million. Commissioner Christy said they hope to break ground on the new facility in the fall of 2027. A contractor for the project has not been hired at this time.

“We are in the planning stages currently with drawings soon to be completed,” Christy said. “Current changes in requirements of lenders call for design to be able to withstand a 500-year flooding event. We were lucky to have this information at the stage we are in as we only had to raise the plant six inches.”

Gress said the $1.25 million grant is not a matching grant. It is a reimbursable grant wich means that the county will submit invoices, and then the funds will be released to the county to reimburse those costs.

“Once the new facility is completed, the old plant will be removed,” Gress said.