By 3-0 vote, the North Whitehall Township Zoning Hearing Board voted Thursday night that the case of a controversial sewage treatment plant is not under its jurisdiction and should now be heard by the township’s board of supervisors.

Lehigh County Authority officials had sought a special exception from the zoning hearing board that would permit a 200,000-gallon waste facility near Jordan Park, on land it would purchase from KidsPeace.

The decision was reached by zoning board members Richard Benjamin, Michael Basta and Eugene Wolfgang only after hours of tedious and dense legal analysis by solicitor Steven Miller disclosed that the zoning hearing board is to render decisions on applications for special exceptions, while the township’s board of supervisors makes decisions on applications for conditional use.

Essentially, the vote said that the application should have been made under conditional usage rather than special exception usage and thus was under the purview of the township’s board of supervisors.

The zoning hearing board had to decide if the legal term “equitable estoppel” was applicable in this case since the township’s zoning officer had guided the applicant incorrectly during the application process. Equitable estoppel protects one party from being harmed by another’s party’s voluntary conduct as it related to the township zoning officer’s initial recommendation.

Even the definition of the word “wastewater” as indicated in the zoning ordinance was not clear, causing zoning officials to scurry for a definition.

“In the ordinance it is very broad,” said Wolfgang.

The far-ranging legal discussion, citation of legal precedent and follow-up questions lasted for two-and-a-half hours, testing the patience of the roughly 20 citizens in attendance who grew more restless as the evening progressed.