Delmont stormwater fees will start in 2025, newly formed authority president says

A new Delmont stormwater authority will function as a utility and assess a stormwater fee on property owners, a borough official said this week.

The fee will be based on the amount of impervious surface on a given property, councilman and authority board President Stan Cheyne, with the goal of assessing a stormwater fee on property owners.

“We have state-mandated pollution reduction plans, which is part of being an MS4 community,” Cheyne said.

MS4 stands for municipal separate storm sewer system. Communities with MS4 designation must prevent a set, estimated amount of pollutants and sediment from being conveyed to state waterways. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. In Murrysville, public works crews and contractors have spent several years retrofitting stormwater ponds so that they will drain more slowly.

“The projects are several hundred thousand dollars, and it’s becoming too much to just keep coming out of the general fund in our budget,” Council President Andy Shissler said.

The stormwater authority is working with local engineer Morris Knowles & Associates to survey properties and ultimately determine how the fee is calculated and assessed.

“That fee is going to be put into place on Jan. 1, 2025,” Cheyne said. “This will give us a source of revenue for stormwater maintenance.”

While property taxes make up the majority of the borough’s budget, solicitor Dan Hewitt said the stormwater authority fee is assessed in a more equitable way.

“This mechanism includes nonprofit, tax-exempt properties,” Hewitt said. “It spreads things out a little more evenly.”

“Having these fees dedicated to stormwater will free up a lot of money in the general fund,” Cheyne said.

The public is invited to attend authority meetings for more information. They will take place at 6:30 p.m. on June 26, July 23, Aug. 21 and Nov. 20 in the borough building at 77 Greensburg Street.

Remedy work approved

Council also granted official approval to work recently undertaken by G. Salandro Excavating on one of its pollution-reduction projects.

The borough received a check for nearly $62,000 from an insurance settlement related to work which was supposed to be performed by a Latrobe company. Council contracted with Butz Masonry and Excavation in 2021 for a detention pond project between Dogwood and Stotler drives. The company’s owner, Brian Butz Sr., died in December 2022, and the company’s former website is defunct.

Residents in the area had expressed concern about the large trench left behind when the job went unfinished.

“(Salandro has) already closed up the hole. It’s gone,” Cheyne said. “It was a huge mess up there. I think the borough is lucky to have gotten this settlement so quickly.”

Cheyne estimated that all of the work will be complete by mid-June.