MIFFLINBURG -- Mifflinburg developer John Griffith stands in the midst of 10 acres of prime real estate and stares at the horizon, where a tree line marks the end of his land.

Right off Route 45 in Mifflinburg, his plot is a scenic tract both quaintly rural and close enough to the pulse of town for commuters and businesses. With a rock and a decent throw, you could hit Mifflinburg Area School District property at the western-most edge of Griffith's land.

"You don't even know how much I have invested in this," he says, offering no number.

Close your eyes against the fields of deep green grass and dandelions and it's easy to construct tax revenue-generating townhouses in your imagination.

Griffith has the interest -- he's fielded both commercial and residential offers for the property. He has the desire to sell. He has more than 20 years of experience and a portfolio of successful projects under his belt, not to mention a reputation for boosting the local economy.

What he doesn't have? Permission to connect to Mifflinburg's overloaded sewage system.

Griffith can do all the building he wants on his 10-acre site, but none of it would do him any good -- he can't even install a toilet.

"It's crazy," he says.

Developers across the Susquehanna Valley are being stymied by crumbling sewer infrastructures. The state Department of Environmental Protection has slapped Selinsgrove, Northumberland, Shamokin, New Berlin, Kreamer and a half-dozen other local municipalities with sewer-connection prohibitions.

There's some give-and-take with DEP -- if a municipality shows the state it's taking steps to correct a faulty system, DEP may give municipalities a few equivalent dwelling units (residences or businesses with flows equal to 400 gallons per day, according to the Pennsylvania Code).

If municipalities turn in a comprehensive, corrective action plan, they may receive some connections to tide over hungry developers. Facilities for the public good, like schools and hospitals, are exempt from connection bans.

But when the rubber meets the road -- and it has in Mifflinburg -- a connection prohibition means only one thing: Fix whatever is ailing your sewage infrastructure or face a stagnant local economy.

Here's the sobering fact: Right now, you can't build a home or a new business in the boroughs of Mifflinburg, Selinsgrove or Shamokin Dam; or Penn or Monroe townships in Snyder County; or Valley Township in Montour County, and many other places in the four-county region.

More specifically, you can build a home or business if a municipality issues you a building permit (unlikely under a sewer connection prohibition, according to Griffith), but you can't allow people to live or work in it without sewer and water.

"The local economy is really going to suffer because of this situation," Griffith says.