× If all goes well, a new pump station, which will service both Metuchen and Edison, will be up and running in a year-and-a-half. The Metuchen Borough Council moved to amend a bond ordinance for the construction of the new pump station at a meeting on March 8 to reflect an increase of the final design and engineering cost estimate of the whole project by $1.16 million. The total bond ordinance is now $5.26 million from $4.1 million, which was approved in February 2020. “We are now at the stage of final design and we’re about to submit the plans to [the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)] and the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank for financing,” said Jay Muldoon, the borough’s director of special projects. “The increase is related to several things. Primarily when the feasibility study was done over two years ago, in any kind of project like this, you have some initial assumptions regarding size of the pump station, location where it’s going to be and so the initial estimate was based on the feasibility study. As you move through your process and things become real you find out what is actually needed and there might be additional chambers, surge releases, valves and additional things that weren’t anticipated in the beginning.”