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Bill Stewart of McDonald uses a hose to clean mud from the floor of his garage after floodwaters from the Southern Beltway construction across Route 980 washed out his property in 2017. A heavy rain led to the flooding, which made his house unlivable.
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Turnpike buys flooded properties near Southern Beltway construction on Cecil-McDonald border

Ed Blazina/Post-Gazette

Turnpike buys flooded properties near Southern Beltway construction on Cecil-McDonald border

Bill Stewart wasn’t planning on moving out of the longtime family house he has called home for four decades until after he retires in about four years.

But after his house along Route 980 just outside McDonald flooded more than a half-dozen times in 18 months as part of the construction of the new Southern Beltway toll road, he decided to accept the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s offer to buy his property. In all, the turnpike has spent $567,500 to buy seven properties in that area that were plagued by chronic flooding as part of highway construction the past two summers.

“It was hard,” Mr. Stewart said of his decision to move. “But my property was pretty much worthless. This was just going to be a continuous thing.”

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Flooding problems began in early 2017, about the time contractors began moving millions of cubic yards of dirt along Reissling Road, across Route 980 from Mr. Stewart’s house. The Washington County Conservation District, working on behalf of the state Department of Environment Resources, determined that the flooding was caused by extremely heavy rain and erosion and sedimentation control efforts for the excavation that hadn’t been fully installed.

An aerial view of the construction site for the final section of the Southern Beltway where Pennsylvania Route 576 will intersect Interstate 79 photographed on Thursday, June 27, 2019 in Cecil, Washington County.  Walsh Construction II will dig under Interstate 79 to create a valley near the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies under a $174.3 million contract with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. The new highway will pass through the valley, under new bridges to be built on I-79.
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Daunting task: Building the Southern Beltway's interchange underneath I-79

Flooding returned in June 2018 when crews began placing beams for a Southern Beltway bridge above Route 980. Workers created a temporary road for access, but heavy rain flooded the area along the McDonald-Cecil border again before erosion controls could be installed. 

As a result, the turnpike accelerated installation of retention ponds in that area and there hasn’t been any flooding since.

“We acknowledged we made some mistakes,” said Matt Burd, the turnpike’s project engineer. “Once those basins got put in last summer, we haven’t had any problems since.”

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Complicating the situation was a tributary of Robinson Run behind the properties, where residents generations ago installed a private drainage pipe without state approval. Officials initially blamed the recent flooding on that system — a series of pipes of different sizes that frequently clogged — but residents maintained that the mud and water came from the front of their properties and hadn’t occurred before construction began.

In the end, the turnpike bought two residential properties, the 980 Full Service Mart garage and four vacant lots between the garage and Johns Avenue. Mr. Burd stressed that it was “an unusual situation” and that the turnpike only took properties the owners sold voluntarily and didn’t use eminent domain.

“We thought [buying the properties] was the right thing to do,” Mr. Burd said. “We thought it was an appropriate way to help out people who were having problems through no fault of their own.”

Another property owner, Gary Andreis Jr., and his mother each sold vacant lots to the turnpike, but Mr. Andreis still owns three other parcels in that stretch, his attorney, C.J. Engel, said. That includes the site of the former McDonald Auto Service at the intersection of Johns Avenue, which closed as a result of flooding.

Homes and businesses along Route 980 just outside McDonald have had problems since excavation began for construction of this Southern Beltway bridge over Route 980 more than two years ago.
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Turnpike officials look for answers after more flooding at Southern Beltway construction near McDonald

Mr. Andreis was cited for the private drainage pipe, but Mr. Engel said his client replaced that pipe earlier this year and has no remaining issues with the Department of Environmental Resources.

Mr. Burd said the state still is looking at options and expects to decide by the end of the year what additional steps it will take to control the tributary.

Meanwhile, Mr. Stewart and his longtime girlfriend, Linda Wiedman, are preparing to move from the house his family has owned since 1920. He still has outstanding damage claims with the turnpike’s insurance carrier and there are two holes in his backyard from flooding, but he said he’s satisfied that the turnpike itself treated him fairly throughout the ordeal.

That doesn’t mean Mr. Stewart is anxious to leave a place where he had summer sleepovers with his grandmother and aunt as a child before he began living there 40 years ago..

“I think Linda and I are a bit heartbroken, but maybe it’s best we get out of there before something else happens,” he said. “It hurts after all these years that I have to be the one to lose the property.”

Ed Blazina: eblazina@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1470 or on Twitter @EdBlazina.

First Published: March 25, 2019, 11:00 a.m.

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Bill Stewart of McDonald uses a hose to clean mud from the floor of his garage after floodwaters from the Southern Beltway construction across Route 980 washed out his property in 2017. A heavy rain led to the flooding, which made his house unlivable.  (Ed Blazina/Post-Gazette)
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