A Commonwealth Court judge in Harrisburg yesterday ordered the last remaining elected supervisor for Cromwell Township to be jailed for failing to show progress in getting 80 rural homes switched from septic tanks to a sewage treatment system.

"It is rare for things to reach this point. We're usually able to work it out with the municipalities, and in this case it just didn't happen," said Lauri Lebo, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection's Southcentral Region. "But they refused to exhibit a good-faith effort."

Cromwell, which is located in rural Huntingdon County in southcentral Pennsylvania, has 1,632 residents, most of whom have septic tanks for their sewage.

For decades, the DEP has been pushing the three-member Cromwell Township Board of Supervisors to provide a sewage treatment system for 80 residences, citing health hazards created by the septic tanks.

The supervisors, however, have claimed they could not afford a new sewage system and that the problems with the septic tanks have been or can be corrected.

Senior Judge Keith B. Quigley found the board of supervisors guilty of contempt of court in January 2008 and at a hearing yesterday sentenced board Chairman David W. Booher, 49, to three to six months in Dauphin County Jail. He was taken from the courtroom to the jail.

"What I've seen basically here today is a last-minute effort in an attempt to put off the final day of reckoning, which was inadequate," Judge Quigley said before issuing his ruling.

Supervisor Lewis Fleck, 81, who has been on the board for 20 years, also was sentenced to jail, but Judge Quigley rescinded the sentence when Mr. Fleck, who is in poor health, agreed to resign.

The third member of the board, Howard Clark, resigned June 1 and was not sentenced.

Ms. Lebo said the issue was not what was good or bad for the township, but rather that the supervisors challenged the authority of the court.

"The DEP does not want to see anyone in jail," she said. "That doesn't help anybody, and it certainly doesn't help the township residents. But you don't mess around with Commonwealth Court."

She said Mr. Booher holds the key to his release. All he has to do, she said, is show that the township is making an effort to hook the affected homes to a sewage system. A DEP attorney provided Mr. Booher's attorney with a list of options after yesterday's hearing.

"If they start taking real, significant steps toward getting an agreement worked out -- unlike the steps they've been trying to do -- then, yes, we would like to get a hearing scheduled so [he] could go home," she said. "But we need to see a good-faith effort toward dealing with their septic issues, their environmental issues."

Township attorney Lowell R. Gates, of the Gates, Halbruner, Hatch and Guise law firm in Lemoyne, Cumberland County, said the judge's decision to jail Mr. Booher came as a surprise.

"We're disappointed that it seemed as though no matter what we tried to prove, the court just didn't seem to listen," he said. "And I find it disappointing that [Mr. Fleck], a township supervisor who has served for a number of years and, I think, done a commendable job for little or no pay, is forced to resign his position to avoid going to jail."

Mr. Gates said he is considering an appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but because Mr. Booher is the only remaining elected supervisor in Cromwell, he cannot proceed without speaking with him. And that opportunity, he said, may be five to seven days away.

"Dave Booher is now the only township supervisor for Cromwell, and he's the only one who can authorize this. The other two [supervisors] have resigned under duress," he said. "But Dave Booher is in jail and can't do anything."

Mr. Booher's parents, Gerald and Jan Booher, who were in the courtroom yesterday, expressed frustration that their son was sentenced to Dauphin County Jail rather than Huntingdon County Jail, closer to the farm they share with their son.

"You wouldn't believe how horrible this court system and how horrible the DEP can be," said Mrs. Booher, 71. "He's sitting in jail because it's impossible to do what he was ordered to do.

"Now, the township can't operate because Dave's in jail and both other supervisors resigned. So they have to put a sign on the door that says 'Closed.' The township can't pay bills, can't sign a check, can't handle the road projects. And who's going to take care of Dave's 29 head of cattle?"

Still, she said, she is proud of her son. "He'll sit in jail if he has to, because he was elected by the people to do a job, and he's not going to let them down," she said. "He's fought too long and too hard."

This is not the first time a member of the Booher family has run afoul of the DEP. Mrs. Booher said that in 2005 her husband served 263 days in jail for having a fence built out of tires on his farm. The fence, erected in 1988, was along neighboring state game land.

"The fence would keep the deer from jumping into our fields and eating our crops," she said. "But it's back out of sight, and it's more humane than barbed wire."

The fence, made of interlocking tires, is 5 feet high and still standing, she said.

"It's what is keeping Dave's cows in," she said.