Grant-funded retrofits allow stormwater ponds to 'do more of the heavy lifting' - TribLIVE

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Getting the most bang for your buck is not just a good operating philosophy, but it also is a good way to attract interest from those doling out grant money.

Boosting the efficiency of stormwater detention ponds has translated into nearly $375,000 in grants for the Westmoreland Conservation District, going toward retrofits for ponds across Westmoreland County.

“The more we can be proactive to capture stormwater, reduce runoff and break pollutants down, the better,” said Kathy Hamilton, the district’s landscape architect. The grants come from DEP’s Growing Greener Plus program. “That’s a win-win for anyone who has issues with stormwater runoff.”

For communities that require a municipal separate storm sewer system, or MS4, permit from the state, the retrofits are a way to ensure they comply and continually find ways to reduce sediment, runoff and pollution from stormwater.

District officials received grants for retrofits in two areas in Murrysville, along with Derry Borough and Manor.

The retrofits involve changing the size of the pond’s drainage pipe.

“The old-school stormwater basins were built to control the ‘100-year storm,’” Hamilton said. “But, over the past 30 years, we’ve found that controlling the everyday storm helps streams maintain a healthier corridor.”

When district officials speak to residents living near a detention pond, “they always say they’ve never seen any water in it. So we’re trying to get those ponds to do more of the heavy lifting,” Hamilton said.

Reducing the load from a typical storm helps local waterways as well.

“If you hold back the moderate storms, those waterways are more vegetated, more armored and more prepared to withstand bigger storms without taking a lot of the stream bank with it,” Hamilton said.

The grants can also help communities absorb the cost of the retrofits, many of which are necessary after towns across the county adopted more stringent stormwater regulations in recent months, the result of requirements from the county and state.

Hamilton said the idea was to unify language across the board so updates such as the retrofits could take place.

“In Unity Township, for instance, their (previous) ordinance said you could not infiltrate water into the ground,” she said. “They were looking to keep pollutants out of their groundwater, but we saw that and went, ‘What? That’s the whole idea behind reducing stormwater runoff.’”

In Murrysville — where officials have worked both with the district and on their own to do a number of the retrofits in the past four years — recent grant funding helped Franklin Regional School District officials incorporate best management practices into the Sloan Elementary School renovation.

“They put porous pavement in the parking lot, they did rain gardens, they planted trees,” Hamilton said.

With so many detention ponds already in existence, Hamilton said it only makes sense to do the retrofitting.

“We realized it wasn’t that involved,” she said. “Now that we’ve gotten it down to a science, it’s a lot easier. It’s low-hanging fruit.”

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick at 724-850-2862, pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Categories: Local | Murrysville Star | Westmoreland

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Grant-funded retrofits allow stormwater ponds to 'do more of the heavy lifting' - TribLIVE

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