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Amid COVID, Funding Needed to Fix Flooding, Other Problems

"Our philosophy is that if you are going to kick the can down the road it will end up costing more in the end," said Jan Kowalski, the township's finance director. "So we try to avoid doing that with anything infrastructure related because those problems are only going to get worse."

The trunks of two trees surrounded by water.
TNS
(TNS) - Jan. 19—Despite the financial uncertainties municipalities are facing because of the covid pandemic, communities in the North Hills still plan to spend a significant amount of money this year in the battle to keep stormwater from damaging property and polluting waterways.
 
Some of the money budgeted is the result of a federal consent decree requiring the Allegheny County, Pa.,  Sanitary Authority and its 83 member municipalities to take steps to stop raw sewage from overflowing into local waterways when the system's treatment plant becomes overloaded.
 
The Clean Water Plan developed by Alcosan to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2008 mandate will cost $2 billion to do that and must be completed by 2036.
 
But municipal officials don't need a federal mandate to know that part of the job of keeping stormwater from savaging the sewage treatment plant along the Ohio River begins right in their communities.
 
The surge of water that overflows the stream banks in their communities after a storm not only floods basements, washes-out roads, and leaves backyards sopping — it ends up in the sanitary sewer system.
 
And when the treatment system exceeds its capacity, the solution is to release a mix of stormwater and sewage into the river.
 
At the time the consent decree was issued, Alcosan was releasing an estimated 9 billion gallons of tainted water each year.


It begins at home
 
Stormwater that flows off hard surfaces such as roads, driveways and rooftops carries fine soil, or silt, along with chemical pollutants into local waterways, where it harms aquatic plants and marine life, according to the Penn State Extension Service.
 
Correcting that problem, along with keeping stormwater out of the county's waste treatment plant and addressing residents' concerns about flooding, has become a funding priority for many municipalities.
 
"Our philosophy is that anything we can do at our end of the ( Pine Creek) watershed will help those below us," said McCandless manager Bob Grimm. "All the communities in the watershed, but especially those in the northern tier, have been working to coordinate our efforts to address these problems."
 
The Pine Creek Watershed in Allegheny County is a 67.3 square mile area that covers parts of 14 municipalities. It is a major tributary to the lower Allegheny River.
 
Grimm said when the time came to cut money from the budget to deal with shortfalls in revenue because of the coronavirus pandemic, town officials were intent on keeping spending for stormwater improvements off the chopping block.
 
"The stormwater problem isn't something that's going to go away, so we need to stay vigilant," Grimm said. "Not only from a compliance standpoint but because of the problems we've been experiencing right here."
 
McCandless, like much of the North Hills, was particularly hard hit when rainstorms pummeled the region in July 2019, creating rivers out of roadways that forced first responders to use boats to rescue residents and stranded motorists.
 
Ross finance director Dan Berty said the township has responded to the flooding and pollution control mandate by increasing spending significantly for stormwater management in each of the past five years.
 
"We spent about $150,000 in 2017 for stormwater work," he said. "Next year, we've budgeted about $550,000 for compliance work, engineering and local stormwater projects."
 
Ross board president Dan DeMarco said money earmarked to improve stormwater management directly benefits township residents.
 
"The biggest reason to address this problem is that not doing so would result in millions of dollars in property damage to homes and businesses in the future," he said.
 
But even when a problem is identified, the solution is not always simple, he said.
 
DeMarco noted that the 60-inch underground stormwater pipe running along McKnight Road is on private property. So when a 20-foot section of the pipe collapsed in July 2019, the township had to issue an emergency declaration to do the repairs and then seek reimbursement from the property owners.
 
"When a new development occurs or a property is redeveloped, they have to meet the new stormwater control standards, which are pretty strict," DeMarco said. "But we can't force existing property owners to maintain or repair the system."
 
DeMarco said while some property owners have voluntarily repaired their portion of the pipe, others have declined.
 
When Pine officials announced in early November that they were enacting a series of belt-tightening measures to make up for revenue lost because of the pandemic, they didn't touch the $587,000 that was in the budget for 2021.
 
"Our philosophy is that if you are going to kick the can down the road it will end up costing more in the end," said Jan Kowalski, the township's finance director. "So we try to avoid doing that with anything infrastructure related because those problems are only going to get worse."
 
Correcting past sins
 
Grimm said even when stormwater systems were required in older developments, they often didn't do a good job or were allowed to deteriorate over time.
 
"In terms of any real controls, stormwater management really only goes back about 30 years," Grimm said. "And during that time, we've learned a lot about how it can be done better."
 
Joey Vallarian, a spokesman for Alcosan, which is responsible for treating wastewater, said local stormwater control projects are critical to the agency's ability to complying with the federal consent decree.
 
"Whatever one of our partner municipalities can do to keep water out of the system absolutely helps the overall effort," he said.
 
Alcosan is only responsible for maintaining about 90 miles of sanitary sewer pipe leading into the treatment system. Municipalities are responsible for the other 4,000 miles of pipe carrying sewage.
 
When Shaler set out to restore Fall Run Park, which features a mile-long trail leading to a waterfall, controlling stormwater was a high priority, said township engineer Matthew Sebastian.
 
"Beyond reinvigorating the park, we had a goal of stabilizing the stream banks to reduce the sediment that stormwater washes away and carries into the rivers, which is a major source of pollution," he said.
 
Using heavy stone blocks culled from the site or brought in for the project, the stream running through the park now flows freely and maintains its stability.
 
"In the aftermath of storms we often saw the channel flattening out and starting to move, which can lead to bigger problems," Sebastian said. "The goal was to make sure that the stream stays where."
 
Over the past several years, Sebastian said, municipal leaders in the North Hills have begun to take a more regional approach to deal with the problems created by stormwater, he said.
 
"There's a much greater sense that we're all upstream and downstream neighbors," he said. "So while one aspect of stormwater control is that each municipality does their share to address the problem, there's a second aspect that involves a multi-municipality approach to do bigger projects across several communities."
 
John Schombert, executive director of the nonprofit group 3 Rivers Wet Weather, said his organization is working with local leaders to create a region-wide approach to dealing with water pollution.
 
By using an "integrated" approach that views stormwater control, flooding, water quality and sanitary overflows as a singular "water problem" can promote greater coordination between municipalities when solutions are being developed, he said.
 
"These things are all interrelated," Shombert said. "And they aren't problems that only affect one community."
 
Tony LaRussa is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tony at 724-772-6368, tlarussa@triblive.com or via Twitter .
 
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