Jeannette officials ink agreement with MAWC to address flooding issues

Jeannette officials have approved agreements with the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County, permitting work to dig up a sports field in exchange for addressing flooding issues in about a dozen homes.

The $11 million project, approved in 2019, is expected to start sometime in 2022 and last about a year.

The two entities worked on an agreement for months. Properties on 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th streets in West Jeannette have had multiple issues over the past decade with stormwater and sewage backing up into basements and homes. City solicitor Tim Witt said the agreements call for the municipal authority to remedy the problem for affected residents.

“That’s something the city wanted to make sure was done,” he said.

Heavy downpours in July 2019 forced sewage and water up through the drains in the basements of some homes, causing headaches for several residents who had appliances and other items destroyed. The existing system ties sewage and stormwater drainage together.

Toni Crawford said the fixes can’t come soon enough. She had a washer and dryer destroyed when 4 feet of sewage and water flowed up through her basement. Since July 2019, she’s been flooded three more times.

“What’s taking so long?” she said. “To me, it should’ve been done already.”

In exchange for the residential flooding remediation, the authority will be permitted to install lines under Buster Clarkson Field in West Jeannette, Witt said. The field will be returned to its previous state after the work.

The project includes removal of stormwater catch basins throughout the city’s sewer system, realignment and increasing the size of sewer pipes along Chambers Avenue, said authority manager Michael Kukura. A redesign and consolidation of the city’s sewer lines that handle both sewage and stormwater, along with an increase in capacity of the system’s sewer treatment plant in Penn is also part of the proposal.

“It’s all part of the long-term control plan to replace the city’s overflow containment system,” he said.

Money for the project was included in a $140 million borrowing finalized by the authority in 2016, but the authority is now seeking a federal grant as an alternate funding source, Kukura said.

For Crawford, she never knows when the next rainstorm might mean the loss of more appliances and other items in her basement.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said.