City of Johnstown seeks cooperation with neighboring municipalities to repair stormwater systems

Aug. 21—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Municipal boundaries mean nothing to stormwater that runs amok on public and private properties in the Johnstown area, City of Johnstown Assistant City Manager Alex Ashcom said.

Municipal stormwater systems could be overhauled in a project that would treat them as one system. That's the goal of Ashcom, who said he'd like to see a unified effort because water from municipalities in the area's hillsides flows into municipalities in the area's lower points.

Specifically, Ashcom is seeking support from neighboring municipalities in applying for a stack of three state grants that would defray the local cost of the project.

Ashcom has asked for support from local governments contiguous and surrounding Johnstown, including Westmont, Southmont, Geistown and Ferndale boroughs, and East Taylor, West Taylor, Upper Yoder, Lower Yoder, Richland and Stonycreek townships.

The group of municipalities would join to compete for the grants against other Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, Ashcom said.

The state monies would be pursued in a specific order, beginning with applications for two grants to help pay to identify problems with the region's existing stormwater infrastructure. Maps and studies completed with those grants would would be key in forming an estimated cost for repairs and, subsequently, an application for a grant of up to $20 million toward the cost of building new infrastructure.

Although the project would involve cooperation among local governments, forming a multi-municipal stormwater authority is not a requirement of the grants, Ashcom said. Current and future infrastructure would still be the individual municipalities' to maintain, he said.

The capacity of existing stormwater infrastructure has been strained by multiple factors.

Recent municipal sewer projects have sealed out stormwater infiltration from sanitary sewer lines, which has incidentally steered water to gather on people's properties where it never had before.

Additionally, Ashcom has pored over research showing an increased frequency of storms in the Northeast.

Research from the Northeast Regional Climate Center that showed a 74% increase in heavy precipitation events across the northeast United States in the 50-year span from 1958 to 2010. Penn State researchers localized that study, finding the frequency of days per year with 2 inches or more of rain in a 24-hour period from 1980 to the 2010s doubled for many Pennsylvania counties. Cambria County showed a 67% increase.

Those factors, in light of Johnstown's moniker as "Flood City" for its history of disastrous floods, would make a strong public safety argument for the Johnstown region's grant applications, Ashcom said.

Ashcom said he has met with various municipal administrators and board members several times since March to give them information about grant opportunities and receive reports of municipalities' current stormwater systems. Although those meetings have included public officials, there's not been a quorum of any single municipality present, and so the meetings have not been open to public participation under the state's open meeting law.

However, Ashcom said he has advised municipalities' leaders to discuss the issue among the councils and constituents of their localities as the window for grant applications opens in October.

Ashcom said he has asked municipalities to submit letters of interest in pursuing multi-municipal grants in September.

"But there will be play there, because I know it takes time for municipalities to talk and figure out are they interested," Ashcom said. "Do they really want to commit?"

In the West Hills municipality of Westmont Borough, council members broached the topic of a multi-municipal effort during their Aug. 8 meeting, but made no official action.

The council's engineer, Brandon Palmer, of the EADS Group, outlined issues within Westmont Borough's stormwater system, which are perhaps also shared by neighboring municipalities.

"The existing storm system is undersized in some areas; some areas don't have any storm sewer whatsoever; so I think with a lot of the ground water issues that we've been seeing after the sanitary sewer project coming through, stormwater is going to be the next issue that the borough will have to tackle," Palmer said.

"I know a lot of people have issues in their back yards, so we have to figure out a way to tackle that as well."

Palmer addressed the borough council saying the borough could do a project on its own or join with other municipalities to seek a grant.

"It's up to the borough (council) on how they want to proceed there," Palmer said.

In the East Hills, Richland Township Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert Heffelfinger Jr. said he attended an information session with Ashcom in March. But while other municipalities have more recently been receiving with constituents' complaints related to stormwater, Richland Township has been working on improving its stormwater system for the better part of two decades, Heffelfinger said.

"The Richland board is not committed (to a multi-municipal plan) at this time because it is getting its own house in order and has been for the past 18 years," he said.

Ashcom said he foresees the state Department of Environmental Protection mandating municipalities to repair stormwater systems in the same way the department mandated sanitary sewer rehabilitation years ago.

"There are other metropolitan areas where the state Department of Environmental Protection has asked municipalities to deal with rainwater," Aschom said. "My understanding is they start with mandating sewage repairs and move to stormwater."

Sanitary sewage projects have recently been completed or are nearly completed across the Johnstown region. Stormwater could be next, he said.

"I think being proactive (on stormwater) rather than reactive is the way to go," Ashcom said, "and if we can do it together and save all of our taxpayers a lot of money, it would help our people so much."