In a special meeting Monday, the Slatington borough council rescinded its decision to purchase 36 air cylinders for Scott Air-Paks for the Slatington Fire Department.

The council had approved the purchase of the 30-minute air cylinders at its regular meeting on May 8, but then reconsidered that decision. The new 30-minute air cylinders would cost $1,176 each.

Councilman Jeffrey Hausman said he talked to the fire chief at Emerald Fire Company in Slatington, and they went through a company that refurbishes the cylinders and charges $350 per cylinder.

“To me, that’s better than wasting money on new bottles,” he said.

The fire department wants to order new packs to replace older, broken packs, and upgrade to 45-minute air cylinders. The problem is that the larger 45-minute cylinders won’t fit in the old packs. The 30-minute cylinders will fit in both the packs they have and the new ones that will also work with the 45-minute packs.

“My theory is we definitely need to upgrade the bottles on the old packs for the time being,” Hausman said.

There are 14 packs that would use the refurbished air cylinders, Hausman said. Each pack needs two air cylinders, so the borough would need to purchase 28 cylinders plus two additional cylinders as backup for a total of 30 air cylinders.

Hausman suggested the borough purchase 30 refurbished air cylinders, which are recertified and good for 15 years.

“If we’re lucky, hopefully we can get a grant within the next year or two and do this outfit that the chief asked about and get the rest of them replaced, and the rest of the bottles,” Hausman said.

The refurbished cylinders would cost $10,500 plus shipping and handling. The new cylinders would be $35,280 plus shipping and handling.

After discussing it, council approved the purchase of 30 refurbished air cylinders, not to exceed $12,000 plus shipping and handling. The purchase will be paid for with money received through the Coronavirus Relief Fund.

In other business, council approved a payment of $10,000 to Brave Industrial Paint LLC for work done on the digester lid removal project at the sewer treatment plant. This was the last payment.

The total cost for the project was $191,459. Slatington actually paid $3,340 less than the original bid, because the cost to dispose was less than anticipated. The original bid was $194,799.

“We paid them to empty the tank beforehand, over 90,000 gallons,” said borough manager Dan Stevens.

Council also approved hiring Paul J. Bruder Jr., an attorney with Mette, Evans and Woodside, to represent the borough in an issue concerning a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit with the Department of Environmental Protection.

Stevens said new regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has lowered the amount of copper that can be in water released into the river. The limit is less than the limit required for drinking water, which is less than 1.3 parts per million. Copper gets into drinking water through leaching in the pipes.

“We had 30 days to respond to this,” Stevens said. “This guy’s supposed to be the best.”

The borough is paying the attorney, who specializes in this law, $425 per hour.