Stormwater project complete

By Tim Hahn, Erie Daily Times

The grass is finally growing on a 2 1/2 -year project to ease the threat of flooding in the southeastern end of the city.

Work is about complete on a project that is adding a series of swales, retention ponds and plantings to capture and slow the flow of runoff water from upper Pine Street, said Jill Groves of the Meadville Redevelopment Authority.

The sophisticated storm water retention system has been built at the entrance to Cora Clark Park next to a five-tier parking lot that is owned by the Redevelopment Authority. It was designed to catch runoff water from the parking lot and neighboring areas and temporarily retain it to prevent large volumes of water from traveling downhill, Groves said.

The project was paid for with a portion of a $163,000 Growing Greener grant that the French Creek Project received from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in 2005.

The agency obtained the grant to use examples of alternate storm water technologies in demonstration projects throughout the French Creek area, said Mark Gorman, of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. The Pine Street area was targeted, Gorman said, because of an incident in May 2004 when the Meadville Medical Center's Grove Street facility was flooded when a plugged culvert in Cora Clark Park created a dam that eventually gave way. Although the flooding wasn't caused by the Redevelopment Authority's parking lot, officials wanted to do something to control runofT from their property. Groves said. The French Creek Project worked with Deiss & Halmi Engineering Inc. of Edinboro to design the water retention system, and the Meadville Redevelopment Authority hired Meadville Land Services Inc. to do the work.

Tlie final inspection on the project was completed last week, Groves said.

A side benefit to the storm water project was that it supplied Meadville officials with a mountain of dirt to fix another water problem at Cora Clark Park.

A culvert in the stream that cuts through the park had washed out several years ago, wiping out a section of hiking trail that crossed the creek over the culvert, city Development Manager Rick Williams said.

With DEP approval, the city purchased a larger pipe and recently placed it in the creek, topping it with more than 400 cubic yards of dirt that came from the storm water project, Williams said. The area has been seeded, and the grass is starting to grow, he said.

The entire project cost Meadville close to $15,000, Williams said.

With the storm water project now completed, Gorman said officials plan to show it off to other individuals and agencies who might be in the market for a solution to their own water runoff problems.

"There are state and federal, and often times municipal, requirements to manage storm water. People are looking for ways to manage it efficiently, and the technology there is a good example," he said.

To learn more about PEC's water resources work in Northwestern PA:

French Creek Project - PEC's works with conservationists, landowners, farmers, the business community, local government officials and academic institutions to protect this aquatic treasure.

French Creek Stormwater - PEC works with Meadville and Franklin to implement stormwater best management practices (BMPs)

Great Lakes Compact - PEC helped develop and support the legislation by working directly with representatives of the City and County of Erie, agriculture, business and industry, and environmental interests in the Lake Erie Watershed.