Authority presses Trust for location to site Milford area water treatment plant

MILFORD — Officials are hoping that a land swap will finally provide a home for a water treatment facility to serve Milford Borough and the US Route 209 commercial properties of Milford Township. The Trust for Public Lands is in the process of acquiring flood-plain acreage from the Santos family. Commissioners’ Clerk Gary Orben earlier this month said that Pike County will acquire the property, some 80 acres, for passive recreational use. That purchase would land-lock or isolate a 12.8-acre lot that the National Park Service owns adjoining the Santos property and the Milford Township Building. That property in past has been identified by the Milford Municipal Authority as a possible site for some form of water treatment facility, but NPS perhaps anticipating its own purchase of the Santos property has not been willing to offer it, Milford Township Supervisor Don Quick said. That may have changed. In a Dec. 10 letter to the land trust, authority vice-president, Tom Hoff reported that park officials at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area “appear willing to seriously discuss the swap of the parcel for a parcel owned by the borough which is located in the (park) somewhat to south of Santos. That parcel, near the park’s northern traffic gate on US Route 209, is used as a mulch site for leaves and plant refuse. The park service “has indicated a willingness,” to begin examining the 12.8-acre site for its suitability for the authority’s use and predicted some chance that Congress might approve a land swap. Despite the encouraging position of the park service, Hoff also noted, “this does not rule out the authority’s potential interest in the lower flood plain lands for sewage treatment and/or land based effluent disposal ... Other than these lands, there are few alternatives.” Earlier this month the township supervisors approved the land subdivision that will allow the Land Trust purchase for Pike. At the time, Quick emphasized that the okay was based on the county’s willingness to address the sewage disposal problem. Quick said Monday that he had not heard anything new from Pike County.