DUNCANNON, Pa. (WHTM) -- A Perry County community is in the middle of a water supply emergency and part of this problem is leaks in the system. Finding a way to fix this issue, however, is proving complicated.
Duncannon's Borough Engineer Greg Rogalski states that the borough loses between 40 percent and 50 percent of the water it produces every month. Fixing that could take help from every level of government.
"Water is one of those things that we just can't go without," Perry County Planning Coordinator Jason Finnerty said.
Finnerty is well aware of Duncannon's water issues -- he said the borough has had problems in the past.
"It needs to be resolved," he said.
Rogalski said there are projects underway to deal with this, like listening to pipes to try and find the leaks. The borough is also working on water mains to reduce how much water gets out, but Duncannon is facing a two-fold problem: a very old system and a very small taxpayer base.
"It's an ongoing effort, the system of Duncannon, some of it approaches 100 years old, so we certainly have a lot of infrastructure that's old and a relatively small population to be able to fund that infrastructure replacement," Rogalski said.
This means money for upgrades will have to come from grants, not at the county level, but from the state.
"As far as the county having its own separate grant pool, they haven't established anything like that," Finnerty said.
Still, Perry County can help, both with writing the applications and getting Duncannon's projects into the county's comprehensive plan.
"We looked at all of the municipal comprehensive plans...and basically we assembled that into one document," Finnerty said of the plan.
Duncannon is one of the municipalities that has signed on to the plan, so the county knows what the borough needs.
"This is just basically an overriding project sheet that's been submitted for water improvements in Duncannon Borough," Finnerty said, explaining there is an entire section of the plan regarding facilities and utility systems like water and sewer.
With Duncannon part of the plan, this makes grant applications much simpler -- most applications ask whether a specific project is part of a comprehensive plan.
"It makes it so much easier when we have a project that's included in a plan, to be able to offer up support for that," Finnerty said.
Perry County Commissioner Brenda Watson said Duncannon could also go after federal money. In May, Senator Bob Casey helped get more than $8 million in federal funds to another Perry County community -- Loysville -- to upgrade their water and sewer system.
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