The Munhall Municipal Sanitary Sewer Authority would like to award a contract for work to repair its aging sewer lines, but a lack of communication between the authority and its engineer is slowing down the project.

State Pipe Services Inc., of Cranberry, provided a low bid of $4.4 million for work to rehabilitate the sanitary sewer lines, but authority officials said communication issues with Chester Engineers has slowed the project to a crawl.

"The engineer did not instruct us to award it," authority manager Michael Terrick said following a meeting Thursday. "That is what we are waiting on."

The engineering firm was not represented at the meeting.

"There have been some paperwork issues and some confusion over other items," Mr. Terrick said. "Some deadlines regarding the project have been missed. We're just trying to move forward."

The borough is under a consent order from the state Department of Environmental Resources to repair the 15.25 miles of sanitary sewer lines. The project includes line repairs, installation of manholes and the televising and cleaning of the lines.

In July, the authority received a $7.1 million loan from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure and Investment Authority for the needed repairs.

"That will cover about 75 percent of the work," Mr. Terrick said.

After the contract is awarded, work is expected to begin in June, he said.

"It should take between 180 and 240 days to finish the project," he said

But before the digging begins, matters between the authority and its engineering firm need to be hashed out.

"A lot of our questions have not been answered in a timely fashion," Mr. Terrick said.

"We understand that when a project like this gets started, there are going to be delays. But we are too far along now to have these issues keep coming up."

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