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Freeland Fixing Water Woes

FREELAND — A water authority in Luzerne County is working to make some improvements after dealing with serious water woes this past winter. Freeland’...

FREELAND -- A water authority in Luzerne County is working to make some improvements after dealing with serious water woes this past winter.

Freeland's Municipal Water and Sewer Authority is getting a facelift.

Renovations are happening to the outside of the municipal authority's building and to a century-old water reservoir on Birkbeck Street.

“That reservoir, it`s reached its age. I mean, it has to be replaced. We`re going to put a prefabbed tank in. That tank we could actually get more capacity out of it,” said Bill Kuklis, chairman of water projects.

Along with replacing the reservoir, the authority plans to install two new wells to increase the water supply for the 2,400 homes and businesses it serves.

The authority has already applied for a $4 million state loan for the project.

“We don`t expect to even get near that, but we just have that as a contingency. We also applied for the local gaming grants,” Kulkus said.

The authority says replacing the reservoir and upgrading the building were two scheduled improvements, but after being overwhelmed with frozen pipes this past winter, they added a few more upgrades to prevent the problem from happening again.

“Some of the aspects of the project are going to help us in the future. With not only freeze ups, but any other kind of emergency. Because as part of our building upgrade we upgraded our phone systems,” said Jerry Wizda, Freeland Municipal Authority.

The new phone systems will allow the authority to communicate with everyone it serves all at once.

It hopes that upgrade and the work on the reservoir and wells will be completed by the end of the year.

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