Pennsylvania
Joint Local Agency Service Areas

The Pennsylvania Sewage Facilities Act (Act 537) defines "Local Agency" as "a municipality, or any combination thereof acting cooperatively or jointly under the laws of the Commonwealth, county, county department of health or joint county department of health." Local Agencies are responsible for carrying out onlot or onsite ("septic system") sewage treatment system permitting and enforcement activities. With certain exceptions (i.e. large volume onlot systems), local agencies are responsible for issuing permits for retaining tanks, or for individual and community onlot sewage systems which employ renovation of sewage effluent in soil absorption area or spray field. Local agencies employ Sewage Enforcement Officers (SEO) and other staff as necessary to meet this obligation.

When groups of municipalities form a common agency for the purpose of pooling their individual resources, working together to coordinate permitting and enforcement activities over a larger area, or to receive increased annual reimbursement funding from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), this new organization may be referred to as a "Joint Local Agency." Within their larger service area, Joint Local Agencies perform all the permitting and enforcement activities normally provided by a Local Agency and often provide superior service with a full time staff. While county departments of health are actually mentioned in Act 537 as Local Agencies, since they serve all the municipalities within a county they may be considered an example of a Joint Local Agency. A Joint Local Agency may also be referred to as "Multi-Municipal Local Agency" (MMLA) or even a "Sewage Committee."

In some cases Joint Local Agencies may obtain additional authority and responsibility from DEP by requesting Act 537 planning approval delegation. These agencies are known as "Delegated Joint Local Agencies." Delegated Joint Local Agencies may receive authorization from DEP to review and either approve or disapprove new land development planning proposals. Depending upon their individual requests, Delegated Joint Local Agencies may receive authorization from DEP to process both onlot and public sewerage proposals.

The Joint Local Agency Service Area maps and related data provided here represent a tabulation of municipalities acting in coordination through out the Commonwealth. The maps are color coded to depict Local Agencies, Joint Local Agencies and Delegated Joint Local Agencies in order to assist in determining the type and name of the agency providing onlot permitting service in a given area.

While this mapping is updated using multiple sources within DEP, if information presented here is in error, municipalities are invited submit corrected data to the DEP, Division of Wastewater Management, RCSOB-11th Floor, P.O. Box 8774, Harrisburg, PA 17105-8774.

To contact the division by phone, call (717)-787-8184; email comment to Jim Novinger at jnovinger@state.pa.us.

To find other information related to sewage facilities planning and joint local agencies, please visit the following pages:

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