Hopewell Borough is taking the next step in the process of a potential sale for its water system with a pre-qualifying stage for interested public and private utilities.
Council members through a resolution on Nov. 7 approved request for qualifications (RFQ) from public and private entities. An RFQ is a pre-qualification stage that is being used to identify and verify potential interested buying parties.
“It does not mean we are going to sell it to them,” Mayor Ryan Kennedy said. “It does not mean that they have to provide us yet with what their proposal will be. [It’s] the first step in attempting to get proposals about what they would propose to do for our system and for us is to qualify for bidders.”
Over the summer, the borough entered the WIPA (Water Infrastructure Protection Act) process for the potential sale of its water system, which was approved by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP).
WIPA authorizes certain owners of water or wastewater systems to enter into a long-term lease contract or sell their water or wastewater assets to a private or public entity.
To qualify for the WIPA process, Hopewell Borough needed to qualify for one of five emergent conditions.
NJDEP determined in June that Hopewell Borough qualified with emergent condition No. 3: “the present deficiency or violation of the maximum containment levels established pursuant to the Safe Water Drinking Act concerning the availability or potability of water, or concerning provision of water at adequate volume of pressure.”
A future step in the process would be drafting of an RFP (Request for Proposal) which would see what terms a utility might be willing to offer. Borough officials continue to commit to public input while the borough continues through each stage of the WIPA process and potential sale.
Updates and discussions at each council meeting also remain on the agenda.
Down the line should borough officials achieve favorable terms with an interested party, the borough will have a referendum vote.
Residents had gathered 222 petition signatures in time by an Aug. 5 deadline to force a referendum vote before any potential sale.
