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BLACKSBURG -- Town Manager Gary Huff told Blacksburg Town Council at Tuesday's work session that it has been granted a 60-day reprieve from deciding on the size of a sewer pipe along Webb Street. That decision could set a course for the town's development during the next 50 years.

The delay will allow a consultant to study the options and costs of increasing the sewer service area in the north end of town, Huff said.

Proposed service areas include the Preston Forest subdivision just across the town line, part or all of the Tom's Creek Basin and areas north and east of the U.S. 460 Bypass. Council could decide to serve some, all or none of those areas with this sewer pipe.

Either way, Huff has repeatedly told council that a bigger pipe is needed to handle the sewage that already flows through that line. The pipe there is full, even in dry weather, and often leaks out of a manhole on Kabrich Street and into the town's waterways during heavy rain.

Council is also looking at another sewer pipe upgrade that will serve University Mall as it expands, parts of Virginia Tech's campus and perhaps some areas west of the bypass.

Council put down the sewer and took up another controversial subject on Tuesday when it decided to remove a $50,000 line item for development of Heritage Park from the town's 2005-06 capital improvement budget.

More than a half-dozen members of the Blacksburg Natural Heritage Foundation, an advocacy group, spoke at a public hearing on Jan. 11 to oppose development of a nature center, roads, parking lots and other infrastructure in the middle of the park.

In response, council asked staff to transfer that $50,000 from the parks and recreation budget to the town's greenway improvements budget. The money will help fund designs for a bridge to complete a Huckleberry Trail spur through Heritage Park. That spur will eventually connect to the Gateway Trail that leads to the National Forest.

The bridge must span the creek and possibly some of the wetlands in the park, which fall under the purview of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Parks and Recreation Department Director Dean Crane told council Tuesday that FEMA's involvement is slowing down the design process.

"We may need a bridge that's 20 feet. We may need a bridge that's 200 feet. We just don't know yet," Crane said.

The Recreation Advisory Board will hold the first of three public comment sessions on the nature center project, which has received about $7,500 in grant money, at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Blacksburg Community Center.