Flood summit draws crowd at Washington City Hall
Mike DeBess a planner and civil engineer for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District talks to municipality representatives during a flood summit at Washington City Council
A map of the city of Washington is marked with flood prone areas and creeks
Brian Schimmel, Local Government Liaison for the DEP talks to municipality representatives during a flood summit at Washington City Council
Houston Council President Larry Scears and Mayor James Stubenbordt present employees of the U.S. Army Coprs of Engineers
Brandon Stanick, South Strabane Township manager, presents problems to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the D.E.P.
Municipality representitives and and county citizens fill Washington City Council chambers to present their issues with flooding to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the D.E.P.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Washington County Commissioner Harlan Shober leads a flood summit for local municipalities at the Washington City Council chamber.
More than 10 local municipalities presented their individual flooding problems to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Tuesday afternoon, during a flood summit hosted at Washington City Hall.
The municipal officials were asking for help from the engineers with a plan to mitigate the countywide problem, with a specific look at the Chartiers Creek watershed.
“I’ve never seen water in North Franklin like we see now,” said North Franklin Township Supervisor Bob Sabot. “We can’t get the water out of North Franklin quick enough, and we’re at the beginning of the creek.”
The meeting was set up by Washington officials and Washington County Commissioner Harlan Shober, who wanted affected municipalities to have a chance to voice concerns, brainstorm and come up with a plan to alleviate some of the flooding.
“The objective is not to solve the problems today,” Shober said at the beginning of the meeting, which ran from 2 to 4 p.m. “You can’t start without a plan. All of us are trying to do something, to see something get done, and it starts with planning.”
One by one, the representatives from North Franklin, South Strabane, North Strabane, Houston, Canton, Washington, East Washington, Cecil, Canonsburg and others, presented where along the watershed, their residents and businesses were seeing the worst flooding. Many of the problem areas, they said, stem from tributary streams and Chartiers Creek that have too much debris in them or need to be dredged.
Municipalities, like Washington, suggested in conjunction with swollen streams, aging and failing storm drainage systems are also to blame.
Mike Debes, a planning and civil engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers, said he would collect all of the municipalities’ information on their problem areas, review it and provide feedback on planning and funding options. Debes said the engineers would try to match the problems with available programming at the federal level.
“Sometimes, local municipalities cannot solve all the problems,” he said. “We will try to help with the bigger picture, which will take some time. As far as the long-term planning, we took a good step today.”
Representatives from the offices of state Sen. Camera Bartolotta and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey attended the meeting along with Brian Schimmel, a representative of the state Department of Environmental Protection. Schimmel provided officials with short-term options, like cleaning out debris and fallen trees in the streams.
“You can take a look at the pinch points,” he said. “Getting the debris out of there can be done without any permits.”
Washington City Councilman Joseph Manning said some of the creeks in the city are filled up with dumped garbage and appliances that need to be cleaned out.
Schimmel said he would work with the Army Corps of Engineers on coming up with a plan for the watershed and he would set up dates when he could walk along Chartiers Creek to see some of the problem areas and identify possible solutions.
Moving forward, Shober said he will establish a task force made up of a representative from each municipality, a representative from the Army Corps of Engineers and a DEP representative. The task force, he said, will meet regularly to discuss what’s being done and planned to mitigate flooding, and to make sure that “what one municipality is doing won’t be negatively affecting someone else downstream.”