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An act as simple as washing your car in your driveway will require extra care as mandated stormwater management plans take effect across the state.
“You can't use soap if you wash your car and the water runs out onto the street and then into the storm drain system,” said Lucien Bove, whose firm, Bove Engineering, represents several Alle-Kiski municipalities, including Vandergrift.
Officials say residents will have to be more aware of what contaminants may be flowing from their property and into municipal storm drains as regulations ramp up to reduce pollution in waterways.
Municipalities already are preparing for renewal of their municipal storm sewer system permits, which must be completed every five years. Applications are due in September.
A pollutant reduction plan, or PRP, which requires municipalities to calculate pollutant amounts and propose practices and projects to reduce those amounts during the permit period, is required.
The state ramped up this year's requirements for municipalities across the state.
Bove said he takes issue with some of the changes to discharges allowed in this round of permits.
“It has its merits to eliminate pollutants, and we need to identify that, but it goes too far,” Bove said. “Now, if we see someone washing his car, do we call the ordinance officer? Do we call the police?”
Bove said commercial car washes are not at issue because they already have proper drainage in place.
“That water is supposed to go to sanitary sewers, or they can recycle the water,” he said.
Soap, oil, paint thinner not allowed
Harrison resident John Valarik, 42, said he understands the concern to keep water safe, but not using soap to wash your car isn't effective.
“Unfortunately, water doesn't get your car clean,” he said. “I would be fine being forced to buy soap that was non-toxic.”
Valarik, who recently moved back to the area from San Francisco, said these kind of regulations aren't new for him.
He said no one was allowed to wash their cars at their homes in San Francisco. He doesn't mind going to a car wash.
“As long as I don't have to drive 20 miles,” he said.
Residents also have to be careful when changing car oil or spilling household items such as fuel, paint or paint thinner. Those items can't be washed into a stormwater drain. Bove said it is less likely residents will be able to get away with dumping these items because there will be more oversight.
“Now, we have to look for these things,” Bove said. “We have to do sampling and testing.”
Homeowners to feel the effects
Residents will also have to change how rainwater flows off the roofs of their houses.
“They would like it to be infiltrated back into the ground somehow,” Bove said.
Jennifer Luzik, president of the Greater Alle-Kiski Area Board of Realtors, said Realtors have tried to stay aware of the changes to make it easier for people looking to buy or sell their houses. She said the cost of repairs to meet the new standards has been a notable difference.
“We're being proactive because we know that it's going to be trickled down to other local municipalities,” Luzik said. “We are working it to see if there's anything that can be done in the future as far as if a homeowner cannot afford to have the necessary repairs to be made.”
Luzik said homeowners are required to have a plumber come and test all of the pipes in the house with dye to look for leaks and cracks. They test the pipes all the way to the street.
If they find something, the cost falls on the homeowner.
“They're looking for any disruption,” she said. “Any water leaking in from cracks in the terra-cotta piping.”
Bove said residents will start noticing when municipalities have to come up with money to pay for all of the changes — which will likely fall on residents.
“It doesn't sound fun or happy, but these regulations require things that cost money,” he said. “And the municipalities don't have that money.”
He said that may come in the form of extra taxes or fees on sewer bills.
Officials do have a few resources to help alleviate some costs.
Possible help in Westmoreland
For municipalities in Westmoreland County, one of those resources is the Westmoreland Conservation District.
Hydraulic engineer Jim Pillsbury and landscape architect/stormwater technician Kathy Hamilton pointed to several “green infrastructure” projects across the county in which the Conservation District partnered with a municipality to apply for a state Growing Greener grant.
One such grant helped convert an unused tennis court at Valley High School in New Kensington into an environmentally friendly parking lot made of porous concrete block that reduces runoff.
Another funded a similar project in Derry, Pillsbury said.
The district hopes to partner with Vandergrift to apply for a Growing Greener grant to complete a tree-planting and sidewalk renovation project along Columbia Avenue that began in 2010.
The Westmoreland Conservation District, which has a counterpart in each county, is limited in revenue as well as staffing — Pillsbury said just three staffers in Westmoreland County are devoted specifically to stormwater management — but intends to be a resource for municipalities.
“We aren't part of a regulatory body, but we can be part of the solution,” Pillsbury said.
The Westmoreland Conservation District holds workshops for municipalities to discuss permitting changes, Hamilton said, and provides educational workshops for county residents.
Allegheny Township Manager Greg Primm said his township, for example, has outsourced the educational component of its control measures to the county Conservation District.
Rude awakening on horizon
Pillsbury said several municipalities could be in for a rude awakening with the upcoming municipal storm sewer permits, as the state Department of Environmental Protection and federal Environmental Protection Agency enforcement likely will be more involved starting in 2018.
Pillsbury welcomes calls and visits from township engineers and managers and understands the difficulties associated with complying.
“In a municipality, you're always putting out another fire,” he said. “There's never enough staff, never enough budget.”
At the state level, the DEP offered a series of meetings in the summer and fall to discuss the changes to upcoming permits and how to prepare pollutant reduction plans.
Neil Shader, DEP press secretary, said his agency provides a few funding options for municipalities looking to take on stormwater management projects. Growing Greener grant applications are accepted each January, and he said some money for projects may be available through PennVEST.
The state Stormwater Management Act, passed in 1978, provided some funding to municipalities to develop stormwater management plans — not projects — but those funds dried up about 10 years ago, Shader said.
Andrew Blenko, North Huntingdon Township planning director and township engineer, was highly critical of the Environmental Protection Agency regulations that have been under formulation since 2004, when the municipal separate stormwater system regulations were proposed.
North Huntingdon, however, does not have to file its notice of intent to comply with the regulations next year because of the timing of the permitting process for the township.
Monitoring residents
“If some knucklehead dumps oil down a storm drain and it works its way into a creek,” the township is responsible, Blenko said.
“We don't have enough police officers to patrol every storm sewer to see that no one dumps something down the drain,” Blenko said. “It's lunacy.”
The township also is supposed to achieve a 10 percent reduction in the amount of pollution being dumped into its streams, but Blenko said that is almost impossible when the region's waterways are so impacted by acid mine drainage or runoff from coal dumps.
Brush Creek in the township, he pointed out, runs orange because of the mine drainage.
“It doesn't make any sense,” Blenko said.
Stormwater in Jeannette also drains into Brush Creek.
But as far as catching scofflaws who use the stormwater drains for inappropriate materials, that's pretty much impossible, Jeannette Manager Michael Nestico said.
“If someone's pouring paint down the sewer, it's not easy to catch them,” he said.
Officials may notice a problem if work is being performed on a drain and monitor it more closely in the future, he said.
But other than that, it's a lot of relying on residents not to do it and neighbors to keep an eye out for those who do, he said.
“There's no easy way to know that,” Nestico said. “A lot of it's going to fall on the community to recognize hazards and not commit practices like that.”
There are small signs affixed to some of the storm drains in Jeannette that say “No Dumping! Drains to Brush Creek.” But those are pretty old.
Police can't monitor storm drains.
“People are probably able to get away with it,” Nestico said.
He doesn't expect the permit requirements to come with a significant cost.
“It's going to be more administrative work than anything,” Nestico said.
The Long Run watershed, along Lincoln Way as it flows toward White Oak, is designated an impacted watershed.
But housing was developed along the watershed long before the designation.
To improve the stream to meet the standards, Blenko said, the township would have to build holding ponds along the waterway and implement other pollution-removal methods at a “staggering cost.”
‘A learning experience'
For the high potential costs of reducing stormwater pollution in separate stormwater systems, several engineers said DEP personnel have done the best they can in implementing permitting changes put forth by the EPA.
Ben Bothell of Senate Engineering, who represents several communities including Leechburg, North Apollo and Kittanning as municipal engineer, said, “DEP, they're doing the best they can to make people aware (of changing permit requirements). Their staff has been helping us.”
Bothell said that despite only recently learning about the PRP requirement, he's already working on applications for the communities he represents.
“It's a learning experience for all of us,” Bothell said, “but we're working the best we can.”
Emily Balser is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-226-4680 or emilybalser@tribweb.com. Staff writers Joseph P. Napsha and Renatta Signorini contributed.
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