South Williamsport is facing a costly project in order to comply with the requirements placed on the borough by the Chesapeake Bay Pollution Reduction Plan.

Borough council on Monday heard from the engineer tasked with finding the most cost effective way to meet the standards placed on it and other municipalities in the county by the unfunded federal mandate.

As part of the reduction plan, the state Department of Environmental Protection requires a certain percentage of reduction in loads of pollution in a few municipalities based on each municipality’s impact — specifically the amount of pollution each is contributing to the Chesapeake Bay.

South Williamsport has to reduce its load of pollution 10 percent in the next five years.

Williamsport, DuBoistown and Hepburn, Old Lycoming and Loyalsock townships also have to reduce pollution. But each area that’s responsible for reducing pollution is responsible for finding a way to do it on their own.

RETTEW engineering was sent to handle the borough’s about two months ago.

David Hanes, an engineer with the company, met with borough council to discuss two plans available to it for reducing the amount of loads of pollution the borough puts into the Susquehanna River and, inevitably, the Chesapeake Bay.

There are two swales designed to manage water runoff in the borough, manager Michael D. Miller said. One is near the CVS, 518 W. Southern Ave., and another is in the park.

One of the options the council has is to transform those existing swales into “bio-swales,” Hanes said.

Another option is to do extensive streambank restoration work or create “rain gardens,” which basically are ditches to hold the excess water.

Any combination of the work the council chooses is looking costly. But RETTEW will work with the borough as it decides which option to take and to make sure the move slows the flow of water before getting to the Susquehanna River.

The full plan now is available to the public, and the borough will accept public comment on July 17, followed by a public hearing.

The borough council also heard from Police Chief Robert Hetner about the recent surge of drug overdoses.

“We’ve had a busy few weeks, as you may know,” Hetner said.

The borough was fortunate in that it didn’t match the frequency of overdoses as other areas, but there were a few.

“And unfortunately, we did have an overdose resulting in the death of a 23-year-old woman at the Red Roof Inn,” Hetner said.

The borough saw another overdose at the Uni-Mart, 300 S. Market St., but emergency medical services personnel were able to revive the man. The person the man was with left after failing to revive him with CPR, Hetner said.

He added that there is a suspect, but both incidents still are under investigation, so he couldn’t reveal anything more.

Cory Lehman, Robert Cronin, Joseph LaRue Jr., John Decker, Carl Nolan, J. Bernard Schelb, David Geise and Henry Frey Jr. were present at the meeting. Fred March was absent.