Bellevue and Avalon officials who like to talk about joint efforts will have their words put to the test in dealing with a sewer repair project that threatens to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The problem with the West Bellevue Road sanitary sewer is not a new one. A year ago, both boroughs were ordered by the Allegheny County Health Department to make emergency repairs to a broken line that was sending raw sewage above ground. The boroughs then were supposed to submit a long term plan for addressing the decaying sewer line.

That plan never saw the light of day, and health department inspectors returned to the area last week only to find more raw sewage.

“I don’t know who dropped the ball,” said Bellevue public works supervisor Tony Barbarino.

The dropped ball, however, could be the reason health department officials are now talking about the need for a massive project that could include not only replacement of the sewer line, but the construction of a number of manholes and a new road built over top the area.

“We didn’t do anything in a year and I think that’s what’s got them ticked off,” said Avalon borough manager Harry Dilmore.

Officials surmise that the plan ordered last year got hung up in just about the same place as the current plan is -- on who will be paying what share of the project cost.

While Bellevue officials are looking at a 50/50 split, Avalon officials are pointing to the fact that most of the sewage coming into the line is coming from Bellevue.

According to Barbarino, the cost of maintaining and repairing joint sewer lines has always been split evenly among the municipalities that share the line. That philosophy may very well be the law, although no one seems to have a copy of the original ordinance that created the West Bellevue Station sewer line agreement.

“That’s the way it always has been,” Barbarino said.

“We don’t think that’s an equitable deal for us,” Dilmore said.

Avalon engineer Shawn Rosensteel said that a quick count of properties that contribute sewage to the line indicates that 31 of those structures are in Avalon, and a whopping 201 -- including Allegheny General Hospital’s Suburban Campus -- are in Bellevue.

“They’re using most of the line, they should be up for most of the repair,” Dilmore said of Bellevue.

Avalon Council member Patrick Narcisi suggested that Avalon may want to appeal the health department’s order, with the idea that at some point the case would get in front of a judge who would “bang some heads together” and come up with an appropriate division of the costs.

Dilmore and Rosensteel thought the appeal might backfire. Right now, Rosensteel said, the county has ordered only a vague future plan for repairing and monitoring the sewer. The order does not yet include manholes and street construction, but at some point it could.

“Why poke a bee’s nest?” Dilmore asked.

The first thing that has to be done, Rosensteel said, is for the two boroughs actually to come up with a design that can be submitted in an attempt to get grant or loan funding for the project. Funding agencies like to see something “shovel-ready” Rosensteel said.

He said that the health department is talking about a six month deadline to see that plan put into action. It should take no longer than two months to bid and construct the work, Rosensteel said, but that time line does not include funding considerations.

Many of the details can be worked out with the county, he said.

“It becomes a bit of a negotiation of what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it,” Rosensteel said. He said that he believed the health department would understand the problems inherent in funding a project this big, and would agree to having the permanent repairs done as soon as the boroughs can make arrangements to pay for it.

Whatever happens in the near future, Rosensteel recommended that this time the boroughs not ignore the health department’s demand for a long term plan.

“They’re going to start to get more forceful, and they’re going to start to apply fines,” he predicted.