Delmont to begin next round of pollution-reduction improvements
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Delmont Council on Tuesday hired a company to help implement its 2021 and 2022 pollution-reduction plan that is required by the county and state.
Communities with municipal separate storm sewer systems, or MS4s, are required to obtain an MS4 permit. Those communities are also required to come up with a pollution-reduction plan.
Council voted unanimously to award the $75,500 contract for work off of Cherry Blossom Court to Latrobe-based G. Salandro. The company will improve a water detention pond, one of several detention pond projects in the borough, according to its pollution-reduction plan.
Detention ponds are dry ditches that, after it rains, collect some of the stormwater and allow it to drain more slowly into the ground and water table below. That helps keep stormwater from overwhelming local waterways, which can flood and damage homes, as well as erode stream banks.
The work will be covered under a $114,500 grant from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. Council will explore whether the additional grant money can be applied to more pollution-reduction measures.
“The grant is restricted to work within the Turtle Creek Watershed,” Councilman Stan Cheyne said. “We have to finish that construction this year, so there was a question of whether we could approve this up to that maximum ($114,500) limit, if we can get the change orders in place to do some additional work within the watershed.”
The borough’s overall pollution-reduction plan is projected to remove about 18 tons of sediment from entering state waters each year.
In addition to Cherry Blossom Court, the work is slated to include multiple detention ponds.
Most detention ponds are designed for what planners refer to as “100-year storms,” a way of referring to the 1-in-100 chance that severe rain can occur in any given year.
However, towns throughout the county have also been retrofitting existing ponds because reducing the load from a typical storm helps local waterways, as well, according to Kathy Hamilton, landscape architect for the Westmoreland County Conservation District.
“If you hold back the moderate storms, those waterways are more vegetated, more armored and more prepared to withstand bigger storms without taking a lot of the stream bank with it,” Hamilton said.
The conservation district has helped lead the way on the retrofits and recently secured nearly $375,000 in additional state grant money for detention pond work in several county communities.
In its monthly report to Delmont Council, borough engineers from Lennon Smith Souleret said officials need to look at additional locations for detention ponds, “as the borough has very few existing facilities since it was constructed prior to stormwater regulation requirements being adopted by the DEP and EPA.”
The borough’s street committee will discuss the issue at its next meeting.
The overall pollution-reduction plan is projected to cost just over $450,000, according to engineering estimates.
In other borough business:
Council accepted a $23,680 settlement offer from Sunoco, the estimated cost of damage to borough streets as a result of the company’s Mariner II pipeline project.
The repairs will be completed as part of the borough’s 2021 road program.