Bethlehem developer Lou Pektor has filed a lawsuit seeking to halt Upper Mount Bethel Township officials’ plan to dissolve a sewer authority created to support his massive planned commercial development.
Attorneys for Pektor filed the lawsuit in Northampton County Court this week against the five-member township supervisor board and its engineer over a sewage treatment plant Pektor intends to build on the River Pointe Logistics Park development in the Slate Belt, near Route 611 and Interstate 80.
“We are asking the court to stop the township from interfering with the sewer authority that will monitor and ultimately own the sewer system that [Pektor] agreed to install at their sole cost, a sewer system that this township has needed for years but failed to install,” attorney Pamela Tobin said in an email.
The River Pointe project, which Pektor first announced in 2019 , is on land zoned for industry, she said.
The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages.
Last year, the township formed the Upper Mount Bethel Municipal Authority to handle wastewater from Pektor’s 800-acre project along the Delaware River, near Route 611 and Interstate 80. After the supervisor board’s makeup changed following the November election, however, the new board voted last month to dissolve the authority. The dissolution has not yet happened, given the agency has an office and small staff, supervisors Vice Chair David Friedman said.
Friedman said the authority has failed to follow proper procedures and protocols that were established by the engineer, Justin Coyle. “This was never done,” he said, adding he had not yet seen the legal complaint.
“When the new board came on, we and the engineer said this authority was not properly vetted to be established, that certain procedures were to be followed, and they weren’t,” Friedman said.
Pektor disagreed with Friedman’s contention.
“During the last 24 years,” he said in a news release, “the township has engaged and paid numerous professional sewage engineers and planners to prepare and implement a sewage facilities plan as required by the Pennsylvania Sewage Facilities Act (Act 537), each of which plans have repeatedly recommended that the township design, permit, and construct sewage collection, treatment and disposal facilities.”
Pektor said Coyle in 2018 provided the township with a sewage facilities plan that recommended treating waste generated by a “Future Growth Area,” which is land owned for River Pointe. He also said the manufacturers he is trying to attract to the development want public treatment systems, and having a municipal authority would give the township control over wastewater contents.
A telephone message left Thursday for Coyle was not returned.
The proposed commercial park, on just over 800 acres situated south of Portland, has been a source of contention among some township elected officials and residents who oppose the project. Concerns include bringing more traffic along Route 611 and possibly lesser-used roads, and harming the rural character of the northern Northampton County community.
River Pointe, which is along River and Demi roads, about 1½ miles south of Interstate 80, is expected to include 12 buildings totaling 5.8 million square feet. Pektor bought 725 acres in 2019 for $17 million, adding much of the balance of the land by acquiring a former coal-fired electric utility plant across River Road near the main industrial park. He has said the project would bring an estimated 4,000 jobs.
Morning Call reporter Anthony Salamone can be reached at asalamone@mcall.com .
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