Schuylkill County commissioners on Wednesday agreed to use $4.22 million in American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funding to pay for 911 upgrades and to expand water flow to an industrialized area in Schuylkill County.

Commissioners Gary J. Hess and George F. Halcovage Jr. approved the projects. Commissioners’ Chairman Barron L. Hetherington was absent. He was seriously injured when he fell from a hay mower in a barn on his farm on Tuesday, and remains hospitalized.

The lion’s share of the money - $3.725 million - will be used for three public safety project contracts involving the 911 communications center. All three projects were purchased through COSTARS, the state’s cooperative purchasing program. They are:

• A contract from Motorola Solutions Inc., Schaumburg, Illinois, for an RF Remote Simulcast subsite to the existing county Astro 25 2019.2 system at a cost of $889,351.

• A contract with Tower Services Unlimited, Harrisburg, to provide civil site work, a 250-foot tower, and a prefabricated concrete shelter along with an emergency generator. The cost of the project is $1,735,980. The tower will be built in Hegins.

“We’ve been hearing complaints from the Hegins area for several year, 911 Director Scott Krater said. “This allows us the opportunity to put a tower up in the Hegins area. The Motorola equipment we have on our existing towers would also be on the new one. This is the construction phase of that tower, and all the civil site work, like the road, building, and generator.”

“This allows us to help the situation with our fire companies, our local police?” Hetherington asked at last week’s public workshop meeting, when the projects were first proposed.

“In the Hegins area, absolutely,” Krater said.

Hess last week noted the project would “also increase the capability of broadband.”

• The contract with Nokia of America Corporation, Dallas, Texas, is for the 911 Western Schuylkill microwave ring closure connectivity project. The cost of the project is $1,099,674.

The project would provide backup should the T1 lines that connects communication towers in the western part of the county be disrupted.

“What we’re going to do is expand the microwave ring, which would go from the Second Mountain 911 center, the STS building in Frackville, Ashland, Keffers tower, Hegins, Porter Township, and back down to SR183,” Krater said.

“It provides a ‘ring’ of microwave, so if one piece of the T1 line gets cut, it will reroute all that traffic back the other way,” he said.

“With T1, we’re at the mercy of Verizon if a T1 circuit goes down. This microwave allows us to complete that western ring.”

“There was a problem three weeks ago where the T1 line to Tamaqua went out. It stopped our system from communicating until Verizon made the repairs. The lines are getting older,” Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. said in a telephone interview.

The county will also provide $500,000 in ARPA money for either infrastructure or revenue replacement for the water expansion projects.

The funding will help the Schuylkill County Municipal Authority pay for infrastructure projects that would provide additional water supply in support of industrial development in the north central area of the county.

These projects include the Morea well upgrade project and the Mahanoy Township Authority interconnect and booster pumping station project.

The well project will increase water service to homes in the in the Village of Morea, Mahanoy Township.

Patrick M. Caulfield, executive director of the Schuylkill Municipal Authority, thanked the commissioners for releasing the grant money.

“This project is not only to extend and provide additional services for water along the I-81 corridor, which has been ripe and has been for commercial and industrial development, and which has already created 6,500 jobs, but also to provide sustainability for those customers who are along there,” he said.

In 1980, the Mt. Laurel Reservoir initially provided water for the now-razed Schuylkill Mall. Now, Caulfield said, it serves three prisons, Highridge Business Park, the Mahanoy Business Park, and all the commercial development that has grown in the area of the former mall.

“Needless to say, that system is very taxed, and we’re reaching its full capacity. This project will add supplemental water to feed into that system, to be able to sustain and keep those valuable customers of ours in service,” he said.

Frank J. Zukas, president of the Schuylkill Economic Development Corporation, last week said the funding is an “investment in economic development” for the county.

The county has received about $27 million in ARPA funding.

As of the end of April, the county had spent $261,784 of the funds, with another $284,000 in COVID medical expenses earmarked.

The money was spent on such projects as $82,486 to revamp the Children and Youth Services Agency building in Pottsville to allow for social distancing among employees and the public as a public health effort to avoid the spread of the COVID-19 virus; $45,725 for a new truck for the coroner’s office; and $133,573 for improvements to information technology security and remote workplace capabilities.