Oakmont officials seek Allegheny County grant to pay for stormwater improvements

Oakmont officials hope to make several stormwater infrastructure upgrades with Allegheny County grant funding.

Council recently approved applying for about $238,000 in Community Infrastructure and Tourism Fund money. The program is administered through the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County. Oakmont’s application is through the Allegheny Valley North Council of Governments.

Borough Manager Scot Fodi said proposed grant projects include replacing about 500 feet of pipe and installing inlets in three key locations: Hulton Road, between Thirteenth and Fifteenth streets; Washington Avenue, near Third Street; and along Seventh Street.

The major issue to be rectified is drainage. Fodi said during heavy rains, water comes out of the ground along Seventh Street with nowhere to be collected. It tends to freeze along sidewalks and down the hill during the winter.

The pipes along Hulton Road are disjointed, causing the water to back up during rainstorms. The new pipe would move the water underground more efficiently.

Washington Avenue has a similar problem, which causes the water to seemingly flow uphill.

Costs were estimated at $87,400 for Washington Avenue, $86,000 for Hulton Road and $63,700 for Seventh Street.

Councilman John Arnold said these are not emergency repairs, but projects that need to be addressed.

“They’re not something that’s going to cause harm to a person at this point,” he said. “It’s just things that need to be done to prevent any further harm to the streets and to property. The street’s not going to fall apart in the next year or so if the work isn’t done.”

Fodi said the borough can afford to do at least one of the projects without the grant, but might not be able to cover all three at once due to other construction projects.

One of those other projects involves a sinkhole behind a wall along Seventh Street near College Avenue.

About $43,000 is budgeted for that repair. Senate Engineering is putting together bid specifications for that work to be advertised next month.

“These are all projects that are important to the overall infrastructure of the borough,” Fodi said. “These are investments in protecting the roadway network, protecting property and overall providing a mechanism for stormwater management that’s required by the borough to do.

“This grant opportunity allows us to accelerate our agenda, and maybe tackle another project or two this year.”

Arnold said he is confident Oakmont has a chance to get the Community Infrastructure grant.

“We, like every other community in the county, pay tax money to the state and federal government,” Arnold said. “When we have a need that exceeds our immediate income, it’s only fair for the state, county and federal government to return a little bit of that money to the taxpayers in the form of grants.

Borough officials plan to send the stormwater projects out for bid shortly after they know how much funding will be available.

The Community Infrastructure grant application was due Feb. 11. It’s unclear when the grant might be awarded.