CROMWELL TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- In the end, David W. Booher says, the fight isn't about sewage.

It's about who decides what is best for Cromwell Township.

Mr. Booher and his fellow members of the township's board of supervisors go before a Commonwealth Court judge in Harrisburg on Wednesday because they have not met the state Department of Environmental Protection's call to switch 80 residential customers from septic tanks to a sewage treatment system.

The three men, found guilty of contempt of court by Senior Judge Keith B. Quigley in September 2008, face a sentence of three to six months in the Huntingdon County Jail.

"What's going to happen?" Mr. Booher asked. "If all the supervisors are sitting in the jail, who's going to run the township business? We're required to meet once a month. What do we do, have an open public meeting in the jail?"

The threat of jail, however, has them nervous. Mr. Booher, 49, a farmer who lives with his parents, said he is prepared to serve a short term as a matter of principle, but he worries about the fall harvest.

Supervisor Lewis Fleck, 81, isn't so sure. A retired school bus driver who has served on the board for 20 years, he is concerned about his wife.

The third supervisor, Howard Clark, resigned June 1, Mr. Booher said, because Mr. Clark could not risk leaving his cabinet business. Mr. Clark could not be reached for comment.

The supervisors, like most of their constituents, are conservative Republicans. Cromwell is a small, rural community of 1,632 residents spread out between Shade Mountain and Black Log Mountain in south-central Pennsylvania. The supervisors are paid $137 a month to make sure the township's 40 miles of winding roads are patched in the summer and plowed in the winter.

But the supervisors also serve a higher purpose, Mr. Booher said. To him, that means keeping a powerful government agency from pushing them into a costly sewage system that they say is unwanted and unnecessary.

DEP officials, who are responsible for protecting residents from environmental dangers and abuse, couldn't disagree more.

"There are sewage problems in Cromwell. There is a serious environmental issue here," said Lauri Lebo, spokeswoman for the DEP's Southcentral Region.

"Going back to at least 2000, we have been attempting to have Cromwell Township address the areas of the township that have seriously malfunctioning on-lot [septic] systems," she said. "They need public sewers; they have not done that. They have waited, and, instead of actually working toward getting this done, they have stonewalled."

The DEP isn't targeting all people in Cromwell -- just those who live in 80 residences in two areas called Pine Tree Village and Pogue, and the Southern Huntingdon County High/Middle School.

In the late 1980s, Mr. Booher said, the supervisors at the time hired an engineering firm to submit a state-mandated sewage plan for the township. With the exception of a few residences around the borough of Orbisonia, all properties had on-lot septic systems.

The plan was a difficult thing to nail down. After years of changing board members, shifting requirements, a switch in engineering firms, amendments and appeals, there's dispute over what Cromwell's final proposal said.

In May 2002, DEP officials decided they had waited long enough and ordered the supervisors to follow a schedule to construct a sewage treatment plant and collection system.

Mr. Booher, who was not elected to the board until 2006, said the township hired a firm to design the system. Bids on the project were opened in July 2005.

The cost exceeded all projections. A system that the township had hoped would cost users about $45 a month instead would cost more than $70 a month.

That, Mr. Booher said, should have gotten the township off the hook of building a sewage treatment plant, because the plan approved by the DEP in 2000 contained a clause saying it would be implemented "as long as a realistic user rate is established."

"Residents are opposed to [building a sewage plant]," Mr. Booher said. "They're happy with their septic systems, they don't want the cost of tying into a public sewage system, and they don't want to give up land to the easements that would be necessary."

There have been some problems with septic tanks over the years, Mr. Booher said, but those are corrected by residents when they arise. And the systems are regularly inspected.

Still, DEP representatives told the supervisors that they had to proceed with the plan despite the cost.

The supervisors tried a Plan B of sorts, working out an agreement to connect affected residents to the sewage treatment plant operated by the neighboring Orbisonia-Rockhill Joint Municipal Authority. That notion, however, fell apart when the authority refused to allow Cromwell supervisors to have a seat on its controlling board.

In December 2007, the DEP took the matter to court. A month later, Judge Quigley ordered the supervisors to comply with the DEP order.

Mr. Booher said the supervisors tried, but they could not line up financing for the project. Without the financing, they couldn't seek bids.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development office, said in a Dec. 1, 2008 letter, "We have determined the proposed project is not eligible because it is not economically feasible, the estimated user rate is not affordable, and it is not modest in size, design and most importantly cost."

Vickie Johnson, a project specialist with PennVest, a state agency that helps fund water projects, said in a Dec. 23, 2008 e-mail to Mr. Clark that the most cost-effective project that has been discussed "seems to be a regional project where Orbisonia-Rockhill Joint Municipal Authority would treat the Cromwell waste."

Mr. Booher said the supervisors asked Stiffler, McGraw & Associates, an engineering firm in Hollidaysburg, Blair County, to advertise the project for bid.

The firm responded last month with a letter saying, "After review of this situation with our corporate attorney, we were advised not to place the [project] out to bid until financing is secured to construct the project."

The supervisors will go before the judge Wednesday in the hope he will be swayed by their efforts.

"Can he put us in jail for stuff that's beyond our control?" Mr. Booher asked.

"I don't know what to do," Mr. Fleck said. "I don't want to put up with this aggravation. But I hate to let Dave down. Otherwise, I could resign today."

Ms. Lebo said the DEP simply wants the sewage issue resolved.

"They are in contempt of court. They have not provided this information. This is not something that sneaked up on them overnight," she said.