Sep 23, 2019 2 min read

Chartiers Township was recently awarded a state flood mitigation grant to replace a culvert on McClane Farm Road, where three homes have routinely flooded.

“It’s been over the past several years, but with the types of storms we’ve had lately – with large amounts of rain in a short amount of time – the historical flooding has gotten much worse,” said township Manager Jodi Noble.

A tributary stream of Chartiers Creek runs behind houses in the 200 block of McClane Farm Road. The stream crosses both McClane and North Main Street, near that intersection, and continues to Chartiers Creek.

“For some of those residents, it’s flooded for as long as they’ve been there – 40 years,” Noble said. “A few years ago, one of the homes had their first floor flood. We have had to close the road a number of times in the past few years.”

There are dual 24-inch culverts in a ditch between two houses on McClane Farm Road. The project would replace them with a single, larger concrete box culvert, “about 3-foot-by-12-foot,” Noble said.

“It should eliminate the problem,” Noble said.

Because of the size of the new culvert, it’s an expensive project, $556,907.

“We are programming the money out of our Act 13 funds and capital reserve funds,” Noble said.

The $273,490 from the state grant, part of the Marcellus Legacy Fund under Act 13, was announced Tuesday by state Rep. Tim O’Neal.

Noble said the township recently submitted permits to the state Department of Environmental Protection to start the project and is waiting for approvals.