Yough River crossing included in MAWC system upgrades

The Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County intends to cross the Youghiogheny River.

The agency’s board on Wednesday signed off on $12.7 million upgrades to its system that provides water to more than 123,000 customers in Westmoreland, Allegheny, Armstrong, Fayette and Indiana counties.

Among the upgrades is installation of a 48-inch water delivery line that will funnel water about 1,100 feet through a high-capacity pipe that runs along the floor of the river from MAWC’s Indian Creek Water Treatment plant in Dunbar to storage tanks south of Connellsville.

The new service line will serve as a failsafe to ensure access to one of the two major treatment plants that operates throughout the system.

“We have to have redundancy and this is critical for us. We already have one line that runs through the river, so it’s not a routine repair if something goes wrong,” said MAWC manager Michael Kukura.

The existing line through the river was installed in the 1970s, officials said.

Installation of the new water line is expected to cost about $4.75 million and is being partially paid for through a nearly $2 million federal grant.

Kukura said the project still needs permits and other approvals from the federal government before construction can begin. The work is not expected to require major digging.

That installation plan calls for workers to dam a portion of the river to allow crews to install the new pipe along the Yough’s dry floor as water continues to flow into the treatment plant and downriver.

“This will have to be done in phases,” Kukura said.

Authority board members also approved the $3.78 million construction of a new 2 million gallon water tank in Murrysville. The tank will provide additional water storage in the area and will be erected on authority property along Pleasant Valley Road, where another 5 million gallon tank currently sits, officials said.

The authority currently has 67 tanks in its system.

Meanwhile, officials said the heavy spring rains have given the authority a backstop against a future drought.

The authority’s Beaver Run Reservoir in Bell continues to overflow its banks, and, since April, gauges at the George R. Sweeney Water Treatment Plant have recorded 18.8 inches of rain. The reservoir is holding more than 11 billion gallons and sits at an elevation of 1,050 feet, just one inch less than the all time high recorded in 1990, officials said.