The Mission of the New Oxford Municipal Authority, (NOMA) is to provide the best product, water and wastewater services, to our community and service area at the most effective and least cost to our customer base, keeping in mind and taking into account the long term needs of timely maintaining and replacing our capital infrastructure.

Welcome to NOMA

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Please check the “Public Notices” Page for important customer information.

The New Oxford Municipal Authority, (NOMA) was created in 1958 for the purpose of serving the community’s waste water treatment needs.  Over the years, NOMA has expanded its operation to provide water to Oxford Township, Hamilton Township, portions of Berwick Township, and the Borough of New Oxford. NOMA operates a water treatment plant and treated water distribution system.  NOMA also operates a wastewater collection system and a wastewater treatment plant.  With the pairing of these facilities, NOMA has been able to provide regional water and wastewater service to local residents and businesses.  Anticipating the future growth of these communities makes us plan the future growth of our facilities and infrastructure. originally built in 1913 and also a waste water treatment plant constructed in 1960. With the pairing of these facilities, NOMA has been able to offer regional water and waste water service to local residents.

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About NOMA customers:

NOMA services 802 water and wastewater (sewer) accounts in the Borough of New Oxford (Borough), of which approximately 93% are residential customers and the rest are commercial, industrial, and institutional customers.
In adjoining Oxford Township, there are 1,754 water and wastewater accounts, with approximately 96% of them being residential customers and the rest are commercial, institutional, and industrial customers.
In the newly-acquired wastewater collection system of neighboring Hamilton Township, NOMA services 224 residential, commercial, and institutional accounts.
NOMA’s customers, therefore, currently number 2,780 accounts in total.

History and Description of the NOMA Water Treatment and Distribution System and Wastewater Collection and Treatment System:

History of NOMA:

NOMA’s water treatment and distribution system was originally built in 1907 and upgraded in the 1930s to provide a small water treatment plant with a water distribution system to the major built-up areas of the Borough.
In 1903, the New Oxford Drainage Company was incorporated for the purpose of constructing and maintaining sewers for surface and sewer drainage, and to treat the flow from said system by the septic tank and contact filter process, for the sanitary improvement of the Borough of New Oxford.  Apparently the plans for a proposed sewage disposal plan and purification plant was rejected by the Engineering Department of the Pennsylvania Department of Health in 1908.  By 1958-60, the sanitary sewer system consisted of a few collection and conveyance lines, and interceptor sewer, and no treatment facilities.
The New Oxford Municipal Authority was incorporated on December 19, 1958, under the Pennsylvania Municipality Authorities Act.
In 1959-60, a major water and wastewater construction program was undertaken.  Besides purchasing the assets of the New Oxford Drainage Company, a new water treatment unit was built and the existing 1907 facilities were modified (increasing total capacity to 350,000 GPD (Gallons per Day)); new water mains, new distribution main and the looping of existing distribution water lines were constructed; construction of the elevated water storage tank (0.2 MG); construction of a high-rate trickling filter secondary wastewater treatment plant (with a capacity of 225,000 GPD); and construction of a new wastewater collection system, three internal wastewater pump stations, and interceptor sewer, and rehabilitation of the existing wastewater lines.
From 1961-1974, extensions of existing water and wastewater lines, as well as replacement of a wastewater pump station, were accomplished.
In 1975-77. a new water treatment plant was designed, approved and built, along with a new ground level water storage tank (1.5 MG), and extensions of existing water distribution lines.  the need for expanding water supply, particularly because of industrial needs, caused this upgrade, which increased the total capacity of the water system to 600,000 GPD.
On the wastewater system side, construction of an 0.6 MGD (Millions of Gallons per Day) advanced treatment works, in 1977-79, added tertiary treatment for compliance with more phosphorous (K) limitations, and upgrading the main interceptor sewer, increasing the total capacity of the wastewater treatment plant to 825,500 GPD.  In 1989, the 1977 plant was de-rated to comply with more stringent regulatory limitations on ammonia nitrogen (NH3) by adding a Counter Current Low Load Aeration (CCLLA) treatment system; the totally capacity of the combined 1977 and 1989 upgraded treatment plant was increased to 1.016 MGD.  The next upgrade phase, in 1989, discontinued the use of the de-rated 1977 plant by increasing the facility hydraulic and organic capacity.  The last phase of upgrades, in 2011, made modifications to the existing aeration reactor while installing a new clarifier, a new return and waste activated sludge pump station, as well as updated other equipment; the purpose of this last upgrade was to improve nutrient removal capabilities to meet new Total Nitrogen (N) and Total Phosphorous (K) cap loadings.

Description of Water Treatment and Distribution System:

NOMA’s service area of its water treatment and distribution system includes residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial customers located in the Borough of New Oxford, Oxford Township and part of Hamilton and Berwick Townships.
NOMA’s water treatment and distribution system is a single service pressure zone system supplied by one source (soon to be enhanced by a secondary source as described below).  NOMA’s primary source of water comes from the South Branch of the Conewago Creek, which has a safe yield of 6 MGD (although an alternative well source is being developed in the Oxen Country Meadows development area).  There are approximately 102,960 linear feet (19.5 miles) of pressurized water mains and distribution lines in NOMA’s water service area.  The water distribution system also includes two large capacity ground level water storage tanks (3.0 MG total capacity) and an elevated water storage tank (0.2 MG) for the treated water.
A contract with the York Water Company is in existence to provide emergency water in the event of a catastrophic failure or interference of the water treatment and distribution system.
The current water treatment plant is located at Water Works Road in the Borough of New Oxford and consists of an intake pipe and screens in the creek; the raw water is moved to a pumping room which conveys the raw water to a nearby filtering and chemical treatment building; metering of the raw water, as well as monitoring for turbidity, nitrate-nitrogen, Total Organic Carbon (TOC), pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen and conductivity is also accomplished there.  Potassium permanganate, powdered activated carbon and polyaluminum chloride are then added.  Flow then proceeds through a 2-stage mechanical flocculation process to allow the chemicals to form a chemical bond with the solids in the water.  After flocculation the solids settle in the sedimentation basin, these solids are physically removed from the process and discharged into the sewer collection system.  The effluent from the sedimentation basin is channeled into one of three conventional media filters for filtration.  Prior to distributions of the treated water to the large capacity storage tanks and distribution to the customers in the Borough, a chlorine solution is injected into the treated water for disinfection purposes.

Description of Wastewater Collection and Treatment System:

The service area of NOMA’s collection and wastewater treatment system includes residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial customers located in the Borough, Oxford and Hamilton Townships.
NOMA’s wastewater collection system consists of approximately 200,000 linear feet (37.88 miles) of gravity sewer pipe and force (pressure) mains, ranging in diameter from 2 to 24 inches.
In addition, NOMA operates 15 pump stations and 3 flow metering stations in Oxford and Hamilton Townships, and in the Borough.  All of the pump stations and flow meters (except the newly-acquired ones in Hamilton Township) are connected wirelessly through the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system to the wastewater treatment facility.  The individual meters in the residences and businesses in the Borough and in Oxford Township are smart Radio Read Meters, allowing the remote collection of consumption, diagnostic, and status data for the purposes of centralized billing, troubleshooting, and analyzing.  The individual meters in Hamilton Township are slated for conversion to smart Radio Read Meters in the near future.
NOMA operates a wastewater treatment facility located at Tracy Avenue in Oxford Township, which incorporate several unit processes for the treatment of wastewater and sludge.  These processes include mechanical screening, flow equalization, flow metering, advanced biological treatment, aluminum sulfate (Alum) addition, clarification, and disinfection prior to discharge.  Common sludge handling facilities include aerobic digestion, sludge holding, and dewatering with polymer addition.
The current wastewater treatment facility is supplied by two gravity interceptors, one force (pressure) main from the Conewago Pumping Station and a second force main from the East Golden Lane Pumping Station; this wastewater collection system collects wastewater flows through a network of force (pressure) and gravity mains and conveys it to the wastewater treatment plant.  There the combined influent raw wastewater undergoes preliminary treatment consisting of mechanical screening, with a bar screen bypass, aerated grit removal and grease removal.  The preliminary treated influent flow is then split, equalized and metered before entering two separate but identical advanced biological treatment systems:  All of the flow passes through one of the two identical countercurrent low-load (CCLL) treatment trains which provide solid/organic removal along with nitrification/denitrification utilizing fine air bubble diffusers mounted on rotating bridges in conjunction with programmable logical controllers (PLC).
Aluminum sulfate is added to the clarifiers to aid in the precipitation of phosphorus (P). Disinfection is achieved by an automatic chlorination/de-chlorination system, using sulfur dioxide to remove residual chlorine at the discharge of the chlorine contact basin.  The approximately 1,200 linear feet of outfall pipe and effluent metering structure provide adequate contact time for the de-chlorination reaction.  Discharge of the treated, disinfected and metered effluent is discharged to the South Branch of the Conewago Creek.
Screenings and grit from the head of the plant are landfilled.  Clarifier waste sludge is pumped to the aerobic digester/holding tank and a centrifuge (with polymer addition) is utilized to dewater the solid waste into a usable biosolid.  Overflows from the centrifuge and aerobic digester are returned to the influent wastewater stream entering the treatment plant.  In 2017, the wastewater treatment facility generated 339.09 dry tons of biosolids, all of which were applied to agricultural fields under a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) permit.
A complete accredited laboratory to analyze the raw wastewater influent as well as the treated and disinfected effluent is also onsite at the wastewater treatment facility.
The current wastewater treatment facility, which operates under the DEP National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit No. PA0020923, has a designed and permitted average wastewater flow of 1.788 MGD annual average flow, with a 2.682 MGD hydraulic design capacity.

 

 

NOMA Office