POTTSTOWN — Fresh off a painful budget season that resulted in cuts to its hours, the Pottstown Regional Public Library is facing a new, watery challenge in the new year.
On Jan. 4, a leak in an otherwise forgotten underground oil tank rushed into bright focus when water was discovered leaking into the basement, which houses the popular and heavily used children’s department.
“Water was coming up and out of this wall, and this wall was entirely covered with book shelves,” said Joe Viscoli, who is the board of directors treasurer for the library, as he gave a tour of the damage.
“Fortunately, our staff is quick thinking. As soon as it happened, they were able to save most of the books,” he said, “but unfortunately, the water really reached this entire area, and being of unknown origin, we have to assume that everything the water touched, needs to be taken out.”
In order to get to the tank, and fill it in, “an entire wall will likely need to be taken out, which is going to be expensive,” said Viscoli.
But the library wasn’t done yet.
Four days later, an unknown person stuffed a T-shirt into the main floor bathroom and flushed the toilet, causing another flood. Although the T-shirt was extracted and the bathroom returned to service, the damage had been done. One of the library’s two heating systems is directly under the bathroom and the water damaged it enough that it will need to be replaced.
“Right now we’re sort of limping along with the one heating system,” Viscoli said.
“We don’t know who did it, but we don’t think it was vandalism,” he said.
The library was closed from the evening of Jan. 8 to Jan. 13 for a major cleaning.
The first piece of good news to come out of the dual disaster is that a company, VCL Cleaning Service, and a local contractor have plans to help put carpet down at a reduced rate.
Depending on how much the library’s insurance company is willing to cover for the two claims, the two floods could cost between $15,000 (“the best case scenario”) to as much as $65,000, Viscoli estimated.
There is a link to a “Zeffy” fundraising page on the library’s Facebook page that as of Thursday evening had raised only $1,130.
This is just the latest blow to strike the library.
In November, the library announced a budget shortfall that would result in reduced hours in 2025, which went into place this month.
A portion of the shortfall is caused by Upper Pottsgrove Township’s refusal to donate any money to the library for several years, unlike Lower Pottsgrove and West Pottsgrove, which are both making the state’s recommended contribution for 2025. Pottstown Borough’s contribution, based on a dedicated tax, was recently raised and now exceeds the state’s recommendation.
Source: Berkshire mont