The green infrastructure movement is growing on the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority.
Alcosan will announce Wednesday it is distributing $9 million in matching money for stream “daylighting,” rain gardens, bioswales, sewer separations, and increased stormwater storage for Panther Hollow Lake in Oakland.
Once completed, the 32 municipal projects selected for participation in the first cycle of the authority’s “Green Revitalization of Our Waterways” program will reduce wet weather overflows into the region’s rivers and streams by an estimated 70 million gallons a year.
“Reducing excess water by starting at the source — in our partner municipalities — is a key component to cleaning up our rivers and streams,” said Executive Director Arletta Scott Williams. “We are pleased to give them the dollars and the assistance they need.”
Alcosan, its municipal members, the city of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority are federally mandated to end illegal wet weather discharges into the region’s waterways from 53 sanitary sewers in multiple municipalities and significantly reduce overflows at 153 combined sewer outfalls.
A bioswale in Millvale. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)Those overflows total about 9 billion gallons annually, and the price tags for various control plans range between $2 billion and $3 billion, with Alcosan customers paying the bulk of those costs.
In March 2016, the EPA indicated it could give Alcosan until 2036 to comply with discharge limits for untreated sewage and to implement a “green first” strategy to reduce the polluting flows.
“Members of the Alcosan Board of Directors are very excited to be able to partner with so many of our customer municipalities on such a significant group of projects, which all have the same goal — to remove excess water from our sewers and help reduce sewer overflows into our rivers and streams,” said Brenda Smith, an Alcosan board member and chair of the Green Committee.
For the first cycle of for the GROW grant program, funded by Alcosan ratepayers, 59 projects were proposed. Thirty-two were selected, and the municipalities will be reimbursed 25 percent to 85 percent, based on the amount of overflow reduced by the project and its cost efficiency. The grant terms also require grant recipients to monitor the effectiveness of the projects and provide long-term maintenance.
Tim Prevost, Alcosan manager of wet weather programs, said the biggest project in the first cycle, is a $428,800 storm sewer removal project in Greentree that will reduce overflows by 23 million gallons a year. The second biggest is a $1 million stream flow reconfiguration project that will slow stormwater runoff and reduce overflows by 18 million gallons a year.
Mr. Provost praised the 10 GROW projects in the city, and the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority project team for “being focused on making the mayor’s plan of ‘green first’ a reality.”
In December, the PWSA released a 500-page report recommending using a “Green First” approach to achieve storm water and sewage overflow reductions.
The PWSA report found that the use of green infrastructure — which includes rain gardens, bioswales, wetlands and permeable pavements to hold stormwater where it falls — could work in conjunction with plans to maximize conveyance, storage and treatment capacity at Alcosan’s Woods Run treatment facility and existing deep sewer line interceptors.
Any of the 83 municipalities, including the city of Pittsburgh, in the Alcosan service area are eligible to submit a grant request. Alcosan also provides technical expertise and other assistance on the projects.
A second cycle of funding requests has just started and Alcosan will accept letters of interest through Mar. 31.
Municipalities receiving GROW grants in the first cycle included Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (10 projects), Shaler (3), Etna (2), Crafton (2), Carnegie (2), Aspinwall, Bellevue, Bethel Park Municipal Authority, Emsworth, Green Tree, Homestead, McCandless Township Sanitary Authority, McKees Rocks, Mount Oliver, Munhall, Scott, Sharpsburg and Wilkins.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1983, or on Twitter @donhopey.
First Published: February 7, 2017, 3:19 p.m.
