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Capital Improvement Planning Helps Londonderry Township Improve Bridge Conditions At Lower Cost

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Asset Management and Capital Improvement Planning Help Londonderry Township Improve Bridge Conditions without the Higher Expense and Disruption of Emergency Replacements

We regularly hear about the condition of infrastructure in the United States, and many times the news is bad. Too often we hear about underground pipes breaking, roads crumbling, and bridges that need to be closed. Fortunately, in Londonderry Township, bridge conditions are actually pretty good.

Londonderry Township is specifically responsible for 13 bridges, all of which cross waterways and are less than 20’ in length. Closing any one of these bridges for safety concerns could cause a significant disruption to emergency access and general traffic flow. To avoid this, Londonderry Township asked HRG to assess all 13 structures and prioritize their maintenance and replacement needs. Our evaluation indicated that all 13 bridges were likely more than 50 years old, and six of them should be replaced within the next 3 – 10 years.

HRG worked with the township to create an approach to address this pressing infrastructure need without overburdening the township’s annual budget. The initial concept was to replace one bridge every other year for the six most critical structures. This would allow us to address the township’s most urgent needs without being forced into an emergency situation. It would also allow us to identify alternative funding for each bridge replacement and carefully plan any necessary road closures to minimize traffic interruption.

Londonderry’s program is a perfect example of infrastructure asset management and capital improvement planning. HRG has written extensively about the benefits of asset management and capital improvement planning. Essentially, a proactive approach to identifying infrastructure needs, prioritizing those needs, and planning for the necessary funding produces better infrastructure at a lower lifetime cost.

Thanks to this forward-looking approach, Londonderry Township is about to replace the last of the original six critical structures: a bridge on Swatara Creek Road. This project is funded through the partial use of a Dauphin County Local Share Gaming Grant.

Three bridges were replaced in 2016: one each on Beagle, Braeburn, and Hollendale Roads. The township bundled these bridges into one project and used extremely favorable funding from the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank. The first two bridges were replaced in 2012. Only one – on Round Top Road, was planned, but a second bridge on Foxianna Road required replacement after flooding from Tropical Storm Lee undermined the bridge. Fortunately, because of the emergency nature of the bridge replacement, the township was able to use federal disaster relief funding.

With the replacement of the six most critical bridge structures complete, the township will be able to focus on regular maintenance of the remaining seven structures to extend their useful life as long as possible. A proactive approach to maintenance like this means better driving conditions for township drivers over a longer period of time. The bridges will last longer, and the need for replacement will be delayed. This will save the township hundreds of thousands of dollars over time. (See an illustration of how this works with actual budget dollars in our article Better Roads for Less Money with Asset Management.)

The upkeep of bridges can seem like a daunting and expensive task, but it’s actually fairly simple if communities take a proactive approach. Consistent inspections to identify deterioration, regular maintenance to avoid worsening problems, and advanced planning for eventual replacement all combine to simplify bridge upkeep and ensure it remains affordable.

When it does come time for Londonderry Township to replace one of its structures, they will use the same judicial approach to ensure the infrastructure needs of the township are met in an economical manner.

(A version of this article originally appeared in the Londonderry Township newsletter.)

Andrew Kenworthy, P.E., is the eastern region vice president of HRG.  He has more than 25 years of experience in municipal engineering and land development/site design.

How to Incorporate Green Infrastructure into Parks in order to Save Money Meeting Regulatory Requirements

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This article is the third in a series on incorporating green infrastructure into parks and recreational space in order to more cost-effectively meet environmental regulatory requirements. (Part 1 explained why parks are an ideal location for green infrastructure projects to meet regulatory requirements, and Part 2 explained the benefits of incorporating green infrastructure into parks.)

In this article, we provide advice on how communities can identify areas in their park and recreational spaces that are good candidates for green infrastructure and how to work with other groups to get these projects implemented. This article is an excerpt from an article we published in the April 2018 issue of Borough News magazine entitled “Parks Provide the Ideal Location for Meeting Environmental Regulatory Requirements.”

How can municipalities incorporate green infrastructure into their park facilities?

Start by taking an inventory of your facilities and look for places where green infrastructure could be used.

Pay close attention to your hard surface areas. These are the areas that generate the most runoff, so look for ways to reduce the amount of hard surface area or lessen its impact by directing runoff to pervious areas.

Look at your parking lots: How does stormwater flow across the lot? Are there landscaped areas or medians where you could incorporate bioretention facilities?  Are there places where you could plant additional trees? Perhaps you could use permeable pavement in the parking stalls.

Watch this video to see a demonstration of how quickly permeable pavement in these municipal parking stalls absorbs a few buckets of water compared to the non-permeable pavement outside the parking stalls.

Do you have paved trails and walkways in your park system? Consider permeable pavement or a tree canopy that runs alongside the path. Because of their linear nature, bioswales can be planted alongside trails or paved paths, too. The following video shows how a system of bioswales along the bike trail in Indianapolis absorbs water during a rain event.

The Magnificent Bioswales & Stormwater Treatment Along the Indy Cultural Trail from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

Could your athletic fields be used for a dry extended detention basin?

Do you have open space within existing drainage areas that could be used for constructed wetlands?

Do you have a community center?  This would be a great location for a demonstration rain garden, rainwater harvesting system, or planter boxes.  It could even be a candidate for a green roof.

Middletown Borough reduced the volume of stormwater entering their stormwater system by converting the traditional garden located between their municipal building and parking lot to a rain garden. By redirecting the building downspout to the rain garden, the stormwater that previously flowed across the parking lot is now infiltrated on site.

rain garden behind Middletown Borough building

Check out this article in the Middletown Press and Journal about Middletown’s rain garden.

Successfully integrating green infrastructure into your park facilities is a team effort. Municipal administration, public works staff, planners, and the parks and recreation department should all work together to find cost-effective solutions that maximize benefits for the community.

But the teamwork shouldn’t end inside the government offices. Schools, conservation groups, gardening clubs, and other community groups may also want to lend a hand.  Bringing them on board marshals additional resources for the cause and helps to build public support for the efforts.

Your municipal engineer can provide valuable guidance on design, regulatory requirements and even potential funding sources.

Municipal staff must be creative stewards of both the environment and the taxpayers’ money. Incorporating green infrastructure and streambank restoration projects into park and recreational facilities helps them do both. By using land the municipality already owns, communities can greatly reduce the cost of construction projects needed to comply with environmental regulation like the MS4 program.  The native plantings used in rain gardens and bioswales typically need less maintenance and chemicals than turf grass, and rainwater collected in barrels can be used for irrigation or toilet flushing in order to lower water consumption costs.

At the same time, these projects prevent pollutants in stormwater runoff from reaching our lakes and streams, preserving them for recreational uses like fishing and swimming. They also help to prevent flooding, which ensures the parks department will be able to keep athletic fields and parks open for scheduled activities after a storm.

In these ways, green infrastructure can enhance the recreational experience for the user. It can also enhance the aesthetic appeal: Rain gardens and native vegetation can provide a habitat for wildlife and butterflies for safe public viewing and can serve as a quiet retreat for reflection.

Signage turns these features into an educational experience and helps to meet the educational outreach requirements of a community’s MS4 permit.

Working together as a team, municipal officials, planners, park professionals, and local community groups can protect our resources while providing exceptional recreational experiences for all.

Ben Gilberti, P.E., manages civil engineering services provided by Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG) throughout Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. He assists with the design of municipal infrastructure like sidewalks, stormwater systems, and sewer facilities.

James A. FeathJames Feath, R.L.A., is a senior landscape architect at HRG. He has 20 years of experience in the planning and design of public spaces, including parks, trails, and recreational facilities.

Benefits of Installing Green Infrastructure in Parks for MS4 Compliance

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Last week, we shared how parks and recreational space can be the ideal location for green infrastructure and streambank stabilization projects that help you meet your MS4 compliance and pollutant reduction plan goals.  This week we discuss the benefits of this approach in another excerpt from an article we published in the April 2018 issue of Borough News magazine.

As we stated last week, the latest round of MS4 permitting requires many municipalities to implement a pollutant reduction plan that reduces the level of pollutants in their stormwater by as much as 10%. This will likely involve the construction of Best Management Practices (BMPs) like rain gardens or streambank stabilization projects, and the most expensive part of BMP construction is often acquiring the land on which to build.  This is why parks and recreational space can be an ideal location for BMPs because it’s land you already own; there are no land acquisition costs.

Middletown Borough is proposing to meet the majority of its MS4 pollutant reduction plan goal with the installation of a bioretention basin along the east side of Hoffer Park. This basin will be created by excavating an existing corrugated metal stormwater pipe and backfilling the trench with layers of bioretention bed components like engineered media, topsoil and mulch.  Water-tolerant native plantings will then be planted there.

Wilkins Township in Allegheny County is also proposing improvements to one of its municipal parks as part of it MS4 pollutant reduction plan. The township is upgrading Lions Park to include ADA accessible routes, a paved walking trail, playground, deck hockey and pavilion.  Many green infrastructure elements are being incorporated into the park design in order to manage stormwater on-site. For example, soil in all open spaces will be amended to enhance its structure and ability to promote infiltration.  A rain garden will be planted along with vegetated channels and a vegetated filter strip, as well.

Green infrastructure can save money in other ways, too.

  • Funding agencies often prefer projects that provide multiple benefits, so municipalities may be able to increase the opportunity for grant money by combining recreational and environmental goals into the same park improvement project. As part of the grant requirement for funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Lower Swatara Township integrated water quality BMPs into the rehabilitation plan for the playground at two of their community parks. The runoff from the playground area will be conveyed into rain gardens adjacent to the new playground and will be treated on site. The walkways from the parking area to the new playground will be porous asphalt to minimize the amount of runoff. Additionally, educational signage will be installed to educate playground visitors on the environmental and water quality benefits provided by the rain gardens.
  • Captured rainwater can be used for irrigation or toilet flushing, thereby reducing potable water consumption.
By SuSanA Secretariat [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsGreen infrastructure: rainwater harvesting tank

A rainwater harvesting system

But the benefits of incorporating green infrastructure into your park facilities go beyond saving money:

 Green infrastructure can improve the recreation experience for park users.

  • Natural vegetation can provide a habitat for wildlife and offer the opportunity for wildlife viewing.
  •  Vegetation can also reduce noise and provide visual barriers to set off private areas for picnics or meditation.
  •  Green infrastructure helps to ensure adequate flows in ponds and streams , so that park users can enjoy them.
Photo by ChattocaneeNF. Used under a Creative Commons license.Photo by ChattocaneeNF. Used under a Creative Commons license.
  • It is generally more attractive than large swaths of concrete piping and basins.
  • It improves drainage, which means park facilities are less likely to flood (and less subject to closure or cancellation of activities after a storm). North Middletown Township has proposed a bioretention basin in Village Park as part of its Chesapeake Bay pollutant reduction plan, but an added benefit of the basin is that it will help to prevent the frequent flooding of a playground within the park during heavy rain events.

Green infrastructure can reduce maintenance.

  • Standing water is a breeding ground for mosquitos, so maintenance personnel must be vigilant to prevent it. Improving drainage will reduce the effort needed to eliminate standing water.
  • Turf grass can be high maintenance. Rain gardens and bioswales can be populated with native vegetation that requires less watering, no chemicals, and less mowing or weeding.

Native vegetation requires less maintenace than turf grass

  • Vegetation along streambanks can slow or even absorb runoff before it reaches the stream, thereby reducing erosion. The vegetative root structures hold sediment in place to further reduce streambank erosion.

Installing green infrastructure in parks provides an opportunity to educate the public and encourage good habits.

  • Signs explaining how green infrastructure works can be used to meet MS4 education requirements under Minimum Control Measure #1. Cranberry Township, Butler County, is including signage about the bioswales they’re installing in Graham Park for this very reason. Schools and community groups can visit the site and learn how stormwater is managed. Park visitors can read the signs and may even be inspired to install green infrastructure on their own property. This extends the environmental benefits even further. The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority has pioneered an innovative regional partnership among more than 30 municipalities to cooperate on stormwater management and MS4 compliance. Their plan includes the creation of stormwater parks that will combine green infrastructure with signage to educate the public. (You can read more about WVSA’s award-winning initiative here. You can also read more about the wide-ranging services we’ve provided at Graham Park.)

 

Photo by Doug Kerr. Used via a Creative Commons license.

Educational signage about rain garden

Signage turns green infrastructure in parks into an educational piece that can be used to meet MS4 MCM #1 requirements.

 

To sum it up: Incorporating green infrastructure into your park and recreational facilities allows you to provide a better experience for your residents while minimizing the cost of complying with environmental regulation and reducing future maintenance needs. It’s win-win-win!

In next week’s post, we’ll talk about how municipalities can incorporate green infrastructure into their parks and recreational spaces, including how to identify locations for green infrastructure and how to coordinate with other groups to get the projects built.

Ben Gilberti, P.E., manages civil engineering services provided by Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG) throughout Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. He assists with the design of municipal infrastructure like sidewalks, stormwater systems, and sewer facilities.

James Feath, R.L.A., is a senior landscape architect at HRG. He has 20 years of experience in the planning and design of public spaces, including parks, trails, and recreational facilities.

Parks Provide the Ideal Location for Meeting Environmental Requirements

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This post is an excerpt from an article we published in the April 2018 issue of Borough News magazine entitled “Parks Provide the Ideal Location for Meeting Environmental Regulatory Requirements.”

Clearfield Riverwalk

Parks aren’t just for fun and relaxation. They deliver significant value to the community, increasing property values, promoting health and wellness, and providing a gathering spot for people to socialize and get to know their neighbors. Did you know they can also help your municipality address environmental concerns like flooding, water pollution, and streambank erosion? This makes them an ideal location for meeting the regulatory requirements contained in the MS4 program.

The latest round of permitting added a new requirement for many municipalities to quantify the level of pollutants they are contributing to the watershed and execute a plan to reduce that level by as much as 10%. Municipalities can meet these requirements by implementing Best Management Practices (BMPs) like green infrastructure and streambank stabilization projects.

The most expensive part of these projects is often buying the land on which to build, so why not use land the municipality already owns in its parks and recreational facilities?

Green Infrastructure

The wide expanses of open space that parks contain are a natural fit for BMPs like green infrastructure.

Green infrastructure uses plants, soils and engineered materials to mimic the processes that absorb water and filter pollutants in nature.

When rain falls on developed property, it sits on the pavement or is directed into pipes and inlets.

Concentrating the water in this way contributes to erosion, and, when too much rain falls at once, those pipes can be overwhelmed. Then flooding occurs.  In urban areas, the rain water often carries trash and other pollutants into the waterways, as well.

Photo by Clean Bread and Cheese Creek. Used via a Creative Commons License.Trash in stormwater

This is not the case in nature. Rain water that falls on undeveloped land is absorbed into the ground. Plants and vegetation filter chemicals and other pollutants from the water before it can reach our lakes and streams.  Green infrastructure seeks to replicate this process.

Examples of green infrastructure include:

  • Rain gardens
  • Bioswales
  • Permeable Pavement

Rain gardens are shallow basins lined with water-tolerant native plants and amended soil media that collect and absorb stormwater runoff.  They are also sometimes called bioretention or bioinfiltration basins.

By BrianAsh at English Wikipedia(Uploads) (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
rain gardens in parks can help with MS4 compliance

Bioswales are similar to rain gardens, but they are lined with plants that also filter pollutants from the runoff before it is absorbed into the ground. They are typically long and narrow and are thus well-suited for placement along streets and parking lots.

Bioswale in Frick Park

HRG helped identify green infrastructure opportunities for the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCSOSAN) that would help them address stormwater issues. This is a rendering of a bioswale in Frick Park along Amity Street in Homestead.

Permeable pavement is asphalt or concrete that is made to infiltrate runoff. Unlike conventional asphalt, permeable pavement is porous, and those pores allow water to seep into the ground.  Often a layer of aggregate or stones is placed underneath the surface pavement to help filter and store the water before it is absorbed into the soil.

Porous Pavement

Volunteers demonstrate how permeable pavement in the parking lot of a shopping center absorbs the water.

Watch a video about permeable pavementpermeable pavement video HRG incorporated into the West Caracas Avenue parking lot in Derry Township.  This video aired on by Fox43, a local news station in Central Pennsylvania.

Other examples of green infrastructure include tree canopies and rainwater harvesting systems.

Streambank Stabilization

Since many parks are already located along streams, they are particularly well-suited for streambank stabilization projects. In a fully developed community that lacks the open space needed for traditional land-based BMPs, a streambank restoration project in a municipal park offers the greatest opportunity for the community to meet its pollutant reduction goals.

This is the case for New Cumberland Borough in Central Pennsylvania. As part of its 2018 permit application, New Cumberland was required to prepare a Chesapeake Bay Pollutant Reduction Plan.  In this plan, the borough had to demonstrate how it will reduce its sediment load as part of a multi-state effort to clean up the bay.  The borough proposes to meet a significant part of that goal by planting a riparian forest buffer.  This buffer will extend the length of the borough park along the Yellow Breeches Creek toward the creek’s confluence with the Susquehanna River.  The buffer will slow down stormwater runoff and even absorb some of it in order to reduce further erosion of the streambank.

Streambank stabilization in Graham Park

A streambank restoration project HRG designed in Cranberry Township’s Graham Park

Incorporating green infrastructure and streambank stabilization projects into municipal park and recreational facilities helps to lower the cost of BMP construction for MS4 compliance, but it has many other benefits, too. In our next article, we’ll discuss more of the benefits of incorporating green infrastructure and streambank stabilization into park and recreational facilities.

Ben Gilberti, P.E., manages civil engineering services provided by Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG) throughout Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. He assists with the design of municipal infrastructure like sidewalks, stormwater systems, and sewer facilities.

James A. FeathJames Feath, R.L.A., is a senior landscape architect at HRG. He has 20 years of experience in the planning and design of public spaces, including parks, trails, and recreational facilities.

Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority Wins Governor’s Award for Local Government Excellence

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The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority (WVSA) received the Governor’s Award for Local Government Excellence at a ceremony in Harrisburg on April 11, 2018. WVSA was honored for spearheading an innovative, regional approach to stormwater management that is saving municipalities in Luzerne County millions of dollars on their regulatory compliance and pollutant reduction efforts.  Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG) helped WVSA develop this approach.

 

Hundreds of communities across Pennsylvania are required to apply for a permit under the state Department of Environmental Protection’s MS4 program. This program is designed to manage stormwater runoff to prevent pollutants from entering our watersheds and reduce the risk of flooding. The latest round of permitting requires many communities to cut the level of pollutants they discharge to a particular watershed by as much as 10% over the next five years. The cost of producing and implementing these pollutant reduction plans can be too much for many local governments whose budgets are already stretched thin.

With that in mind, WVSA asked HRG to prepare a feasibility study focused on whether regional cooperation among all the municipalities in the county could lower the cost of compliance.  According to HRG’s study, the approach will indeed save participating municipalities more than $200 million over the next 20 years.  Some savings come from sharing the cost of planning and other fixed expenses, but the biggest savings come from the construction of best management practices meant to help the communities reach their pollutant reduction goals. Working together, the municipalities can construct fewer, more effective projects that do a better job of reducing pollution for a lower cost than municipalities would be able to achieve on their own.

 

 

Toby Creek Impoundment

How Municipalities in the Wyoming Valley are Cutting Stormwater Management Costs by up to 90%

Learn more about this excerpt from an article about WVSA’s stormwater program in The Authority magazine. The first in a series of articles on WVSA, this piece discusses the many ways regional cooperation will save municipalities money over the next five years.

 

ABOUT THE WYOMING VALLEY SANITARY AUTHORITY

The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority (WVSA) has been providing wastewater treatment service for residents of Luzerne County since 1962. WVSA’s service area includes 35 municipalities from Harveys Lake to Pittston to Newport Township. Learn more about the authority and its services at www.wvsa.org

ABOUT HRG

Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG) is a nationally ranked design firm providing civil engineering, surveying, and environmental services. The firm was founded in Harrisburg in 1962 and has grown to employ more than 200 people in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.  For more information, please visit the website at www.hrg-inc.com.

Cooperation Prevents Pollution in the Wyoming Valley

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Toby Creek Impoundment

This article is an excerpt from the December issue of The Authority, a magazine produced by the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association (PMAA). It is the third in a series of 3 articles about an innovative approach to stormwater management and MS4 compliance being pioneered by 31 municipalities and the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority.

 

Thirty-one municipalities in Luzerne County are piloting a regional approach to MS4 compliance that may revolutionize the way Pennsylvania responds to the growing challenges posed by stormwater.

They have signed cooperative agreements with the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority, which will serve as MS4 permit coordinator for the entire region. In our previous posts, we discussed the many ways a regional partnership can lower the cost of stormwater management for municipalities and the ways it is benefitting the taxpayers.

In this post, we’ll discuss how:

Cooperation prevents pollution.

Stormwater doesn’t recognize municipal boundaries. Pollution can travel through a watershed across multiple borders.  Communities will be more effective at reducing pollution if they cut it off at the source, and that source may be in another municipality.  This requires local governments to work together.

The same is true for flooding. Municipalities can better protect properties downstream if they address the source of the flooding upstream – even if that source is in a neighboring community.

A coordinated, regional approach will be much more effective at solving watershed problems than a fragmented approach where methods used by one municipality may be at odds with those used in another.

In the Wyoming Valley, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has estimated local municipalities generate 39 million pounds of pollutants each year. These pollutants negatively impact local waterways, the Susquehanna River, and the Chesapeake Bay.

The regional approach being pioneered by the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority and its partners is projected to reduce this yearly pollutant load by 3.9 million pounds (or 10%).

The authority and its municipal partners will be implementing regional BMPS to accomplish this goal at a fraction of the cost they would’ve incurred if the municipalities were to go it alone.

 

 

The truth is: many municipalities are not able to meet the challenges stormwater brings on their own; the cost is too much for their budgets to bear. But they can reduce the cost – and make it manageable – if they share it with their neighbors through a regional approach to stormwater management like the one being pioneered in the Wyoming Valley.

By working together on a regional approach to MS4 compliance, municipalities there are estimated to save between 58% and 70% in capital costs over the next five years. They’ll save more than $200 million on operations, maintenance, and improvements over the next 20 years.

Cooperation saves money, benefits the taxpayer, and prevents pollution. Most importantly, it makes the seemingly impossible task of protecting our watersheds possible. We hear a lot these days about the challenges that face us, and there are many who are quick to say that the political climate or financial limitations prevent us from overcoming those challenges.  But the example being set in the Wyoming Valley reminds us that no challenge is too big if people work together to conquer it.

Jim Tomaine has more than 30 years of engineering experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in business administration from Wilkes University. He is the executive director of the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority and has been at WVSA for twenty seven years.  Prior to the WVSA, Mr. Tomaine worked in the private sector as a design engineer. He currently holds his A-1 Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators Certification in Pennsylvania and is also a registered professional engineer.

 

Adrienne Vicari is the financial services practice area leader at Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG). In this role, she has helped the firm provide strategic financial planning and grant administration services to numerous municipal and municipal authority clients. She is also serving as project manager for several projects involving the creation of stormwater authorities or the addition of stormwater to the charter of existing authorities throughout Pennsylvania.

 

Regional Stormwater Plan to Save Taxpayers Money in Luzerne County

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This article is an excerpt from the December 2017 issue of The Authority, a magazine produced by the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association (PMAA). It is the second in a series of 3 articles about an innovative approach to stormwater management and MS4 compliance being pioneered by 31 municipalities and the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority.  You can read the first article here: How Municipalities in the Wyoming Valley Are Cutting Stormwater Costs by Up to 90% )

 

Lower costs and increase value

Thirty-one municipalities in Luzerne County are piloting a regional approach to MS4 compliance that may revolutionize the way Pennsylvania responds to the growing challenges posed by stormwater.

They have signed cooperative agreements with the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority, which will serve as MS4 permit coordinator for the entire region. In our previous post, we discussed the many ways a regional partnership can lower the cost of stormwater management for municipalities.

In this post, we’ll discuss how:

Cooperation benefits the taxpayer.

If regional cooperation lowers the cost of stormwater management, it stands to reason those cost savings will be passed on to the taxpayer. But, make no mistake, replacing aging infrastructure and constructing Best Management Practices will cost money, and that money will have to come from somewhere.

With municipal budgets already stretched to the limit, communities may have to consider new revenue sources. That could mean a tax increase or a stormwater fee.

Stormwater fees are generally a better deal for the average constituent. This is because a fee structure ensures everyone pays their fair share.

If taxes were raised to cover the cost of stormwater management, many property owners with large amounts of impervious area would be exempt: hospitals, schools, and other non-profit institutions. However, these institutions can sometimes be the biggest contributors to a community’s stormwater issues because stormwater runoff occurs when the water runs along impervious surfaces and cannot infiltrate the ground.

If stormwater management is paid for through a property tax increase, these non-profit organizations won’t pay for the services they’re using, but someone will have to, and that burden will fall on homeowners and small businesses.

Studies show time and again that the average homeowner would pay less for stormwater management if he or she were charged a stormwater fee than if the municipality raised property taxes.

The regional cooperation being pioneered by the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority is an especially good deal for local taxpayers: Our analysis showed that the average residential property owner will save 70 – 93% by paying a regional stormwater fee instead of paying an increased property tax.

The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority’s estimated stormwater fee is between $3.00 and $4.50 per month. This is lower than the other stormwater fees currently being paid throughout Pennsylvania, which average between $6.50 and $8.50 per month.

By using a regional approach, WVSA is able to lower costs beyond what an individual municipal authority could likely achieve. These numbers are even more impressive when you consider that the fees for most of the other municipal authorities included in the average above were calculated before taking 2018 MS4 permit requirements into account. Therefore, those communities may actually have to raise fees higher to meet the stricter requirements coming in the next permit cycle.  WVSA’s estimated cost already accounts for the 2018 permit requirements.

Municipal leaders are stewards of the public’s money, but they are also stewards of the environment. In our next post, we’ll discuss how regional cooperation on stormwater management can more effectively keep our rivers and streams clean for drinking, agriculture, and recreation.

 

Jim Tomaine has more than 30 years of engineering experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in business administration from Wilkes University. He is the executive director of the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority and has been at WVSA for twenty seven years.  Prior to the WVSA, Mr. Tomaine worked in the private sector as a design engineer. He currently holds his A-1 Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators Certification in Pennsylvania and is also a registered professional engineer.

 

Adrienne Vicari is the financial services practice area leader at Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG). In this role, she has helped the firm provide strategic financial planning and grant administration services to numerous municipal and municipal authority clients. She is also serving as project manager for several projects involving the creation of stormwater authorities or the addition of stormwater to the charter of existing authorities throughout Pennsylvania.

 

How Municipalities in the Wyoming Valley are Cutting Stormwater Management Costs by up to 90%

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This article is an excerpt from the December 2017 issue of The Authority, a magazine produced the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association (PMAA). Contact us if you’d like a copy of the entire article.

Justify your rates with asset management

Thirty-one municipalities in Luzerne County are piloting a regional approach to MS4 compliance that may revolutionize the way Pennsylvania responds to the growing challenges posed by stormwater.

They have signed cooperative agreements with the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority, which will serve as MS4 permit coordinator for the entire region. The following are just a few of the ways that partnership will save them money over the next 20 years:

 

Less paperwork.

Because the municipalities are submitting their permit requirements as part of a regional approach, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is allowing them to submit just one Cheasapeake Bay Pollution Reduction Plan (PRP) for the region and a single PRP for each impaired watershed (for a total of seven Pollution Reduction Plans).

If each municipality had chosen to work alone, the region would’ve submitted more than 100 Pollution Reduction Plans to DEP. When the cost of producing one Pollution Reduction Plan can be more than $20,000, the cost to produce more than 100 would simply have been out of reach for this region.

But, by working together, the municipalities reduce the amount of paperwork that must be produced to comply with state requirements.  Fewer plans cost less money, and that lower cost is then divided among the participating municipalities.  At the end of the day, each municipality’s share of the Pollution Reduction Plan preparation cost is just $3,000.

 

 

Fewer, more efficient construction projects

Submitting the Pollution Reduction Plan is just step 1 of the compliance process. Once the plan is accepted by DEP, municipalities must implement it, and that typically involves the construction of Best Management Practices (BMPs) that reduce the quantity and/or improve the quality of stormwater runoff.

The most expensive part of constructing BMPs is acquiring the land on which to build them. When municipalities work alone, they are limited to constructing their BMPs within their own borders, and most municipalities don’t have an abundance of publicly owned land available for BMP construction. If they partner with other municipalities on a regional approach, they can get credit for constructing BMPs anywhere within the watershed.  With that flexibility, communities can install projects that yield the greatest pollutant load reduction for the lowest cost.  This often means they can meet their goals with fewer construction projects.

According to our analysis, municipalities in the Wyoming Valley would’ve had to construct approximately 200 projects to meet the pollution reduction goals individually (at a cost of $69 million). As a group, the municipalities will only need to construct 65 projects to meet those goals (at a cost of just $12 million).  This will save the municipalities more than $50 million on the cost of implementing their Pollution Reduction Plans.

 

 

Lower O&M costs through economies of scale

There are a lot of fixed costs in managing stormwater.  When you spread those costs over a larger number of users, the cost to each user gets smaller.  A feasibility study conducted by WVSA’s engineer determined that, as a group, cooperating municipalities would save $274 million on operations, maintenance, and improvements over the next 20 years by working together on a regional approach to stormwater management.

 

 

Increased purchasing and borrowing power

Generally, you can negotiate lower unit costs for items when you buy them in larger quantities, so, for example, pipelines could be replaced or slip lined for a lower cost if the work was completed as part of a larger, regional project.

 

 

Increased access to government grants and loans

Funding agencies tend to favor entities that are cooperating regionally to streamline costs, and politicians tend to support projects benefitting a larger constituent base.  Therefore, funding applications submitted by a regional cooperative are more likely to be awarded a grant or loan than those submitted by individual municipalities. These funding awards can save a community significant sums of money versus funding a project out of its own revenues.

 

When municipalities save money like this, it stands to reason they can pass those savings on to residents and business owners. In a follow-up post next week, we’ll discuss how the regional partnership model being pioneered in the Wyoming Valley is benefitting taxpayers in the region.  In the final post of this series, we’ll discuss how regional cooperation prevents water pollution more effectively.

Jim Tomaine has more than 30 years of engineering experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in business administration from Wilkes University. He is the executive director of the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority and has been at WVSA for twenty seven years.  Prior to the WVSA, Mr. Tomaine worked in the private sector as a design engineer. He currently holds his A-1 Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators Certification in Pennsylvania and is also a registered professional engineer.

Adrienne Vicari is the financial services practice area leader at Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG). In this role, she has helped the firm provide strategic financial planning and grant administration services to numerous municipal and municipal authority clients. She is also serving as project manager for several projects involving the creation of stormwater authorities or the addition of stormwater to the charter of existing authorities throughout Pennsylvania.

How Dauphin County Has Turned a Small Surplus Into Major Infrastructure Improvements

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This article about the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank is excerpted from the February 2018 issue of Pennsylvania County News magazine. It is provided courtesy of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) and is reprinted here with their permission. This is in no way an endorsement by CCAP of the products or services offered by HRG.

What would you do with an extra $350,000 per year in your county Liquid Fuels budget?

It sounds like a nice problem to have, doesn’t it?

That’s exactly the challenge Dauphin County faced six years ago as its aggressive bridge management program reached a very important milestone: The last load-posted, structurally deficient bridge in the county’s inventory was fully programmed to be replaced.

This video tells the story of the last structurally deficient bridge in Dauphin County.  Once the county funded the replacement of this bridge, it had a surplus of Liquid Fuels money in its budget. They decided to use this surplus as seed money for an infrastructure bank that has funded more than a dozen roadway, traffic and bridge improvements throughout the county in just a few years. (Learn more about the county’s last structurally deficient bridge in this profile.)

For almost 30 years, the county had patiently and strategically planned the rehabilitation or replacement of 51 bridges. Close to 1/3 of its county-wide inventory had been structurally deficient at the time they embarked on this effort in 1984.

Now that hard work and determination was about to pay off. The county could drastically reduce its spending on bridge capital improvements by shifting from a replacement phase to a maintenance phase.

The county’s engineer, Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG), analyzed what investments would be necessary to proactively maintain the bridges and determined that the county would have an annual surplus of approximately $350,000 in Liquid Fuels funding beyond what was needed for maintenance expenses.

County commissioner Jeff Haste wanted to make sure the money was used wisely: “The county’s bridge management program had delivered tremendous value to our residents, drastically improving the safety and efficiency of our transportation system for drivers. We wanted to use this money to deliver even more value.”

Dauphin County Commissioners celebrate a ribbon cutting

County Commissioners Haste, Pries and Hartwick wanted to maximize the benefit of these surplus dollars for county residents. The infrastructure bank approach has allowed them to fund more than $11 million in improvements with an initial investment of $1 million.

Haste and his fellow commissioners, Mike Pries and George P. Hartwick, III, were thinking big, but regulatory requirements threatened to make the impact of this money small.

“Because of the forced distribution procedure associated with Liquid Fuels funding,” Haste explained, “the county had to come up with a use for this money or disburse it evenly to all 40 of our member municipalities.”

On average, each municipality would’ve received less than $10,000, which is too small a sum to do anything more significant that buy a little extra road salt for the winter.

Yet, even if the county used the entire $350,000 surplus itself, they wouldn’t be able to cover the cost of even one small capital improvement like a single-span bridge replacement (which typically costs between $500,000 to $1 million).

Haste, Pries and Hartwick wanted to have a larger impact, so they asked county staff to collaborate on a solution with the engineer who’d designed the successful bridge management program in the first place.

Together, they came up with an innovative program in which the county would use this annual Liquid Fuels surplus to dramatically reduce the cost of infrastructure improvements for local municipalities.

 

How the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank Works

The Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank offers loans to municipalities (or private sector companies) to design and construct local roadway, bridge and traffic improvements – at unbeatably low interest rates. Municipalities can borrow money for as little as 0.5% interest.  (Private sector borrowers pay a 1% interest rate.)

As an added bonus, Dauphin County provides loan recipients with optional engineering design support. This is very beneficial to smaller municipalities who have never completed a large capital improvement project before and may not know how to navigate the complicated state and federal requirements these projects must meet.  An experienced consultant can save these municipalities from costly and time-consuming mistakes and re-work.

But, if $350,000 wasn’t enough money for the county to complete one major capital improvement project on its own, how can it use that money to fund multiple projects by its municipalities?

The power of partnerships.

Dauphin County multiplies the value of its $350,000 investment by combining it with additional funding from Pennsylvania’s state infrastructure bank.

Essentially, the county uses its Liquid Fuels surplus to make it more affordable for municipalities and private sector organizations to borrow money from the state by paying a portion of their interest. Interest on Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank loans can vary, but it is currently 2.125% at the time this article is being written.

A municipality could borrow funds directly from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank at an interest rate of just over 2%, or it could borrow from Dauphin County, and the county would pay approximately 75% of the interest expenses.

The following diagram shows exactly how the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank funds its projects:

Diagram - How the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank Works

It is a self-renewing process. As municipalities or private sector organizations repay their loan to the county infrastructure bank, the county repays PennDOT.  Once the debt is satisfied, the county has the ability to issue new loans to other municipalities or private sector companies.

For some municipalities, the cost savings provided by an infrastructure bank loan can be the difference between being able to move forward with a project at all or having to postpone it a few more years.

In the first three years of the infrastructure bank program, Dauphin County multiplied close to $1 million in Liquid Fuels funding into $11 million worth of improvements to the local transportation system: 7 bridges, one traffic signal, one streetscape, and one intersection improvement.

Middletown Streetscape

This streetscape project in Middletown Borough is one of the projects that has been funded by the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank.  You can read more about the award-winning project and its potential economic benefit for the community in this article from The Authority.

“This is the kind of dramatic impact we were hoping to have,” says Pries, who oversees Dauphin County’s Community and Economic Development Department.

“The success of our bridge program and the creation of the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank has allowed us to help residents without the need to raise property taxes. Unlike many other parts of the country, our residents don’t have to worry about crumbling bridges and road networks.”

Read more about the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank, the benefits of implementing an infrastructure bank in your county, and other counties that are considering a program of their own in the February 2018 issue of Pennsylvania County News.

 

 

Brian Emberg, P.E.
Brian Emberg, P.E., is senior vice president and chief technical officer of Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG). He helped design Dauphin County’s bridge management system and worked with the county to develop the Dauphin County Infrastructure Bank. He has more than 30 years of experience designing roadways and bridges and is particularly skilled in creating unique funding solutions to help local governments accomplish their infrastructure goals with limited revenue.  You can contact Brian by phone at (717) 564-1121 or by email at bemberg@hrg-inc.com

Park Boulevard Realignment and Fort Hunter Park Enhancements Honored as Premier Projects by Dauphin County

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Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG) is pleased to announce that two of our projects have been selected by Dauphin County in its annual Premier Projects award program.

Since its inception six years ago, the Dauphin County Premier Projects program has honored more than two dozen projects that promote smart growth and spark revitalization throughout the region. Among this year’s honorees, HRG provided engineering services for two of them: enhancements to Fort Hunter Park and realignment of Park Boulevard.

Park Boulevard

A broad range of local leaders from Derry Township, Dauphin County, and area businesses worked together on the realignment of Park Boulevard to support future economic development in Hershey.  The new roadway provides several safety improvements:

  • It replaces a 60-year old bridge over Spring Creek, which was structurally deficient and weight-restricted.
  • It converts a narrow roadway beneath the Norfolk-Southern underpass from two-way traffic to one-way traffic. This reduces the potential for vehicular accidents and allows for the installation of a sidewalk that is segregated from through traffic.
  • It improves emergency response time by adding a roadway connection from northbound Park Boulevard.  (Previously, first responders had to drive a circuitous route through several intersections to access this area. Now crews can reach the area 2-3 minutes faster.)
  • It provides a new shared-use sidewalk that will enhance safety for pedestrians traveling to Hershey’s attractions from downtown.
  • It adds a safe zone for people boarding and exiting buses at the Hershey Intermodal Transportation Center. This zone is physically protected from through-traffic.

Park Boulevard realignment wins Premier Project award

Front Row: Chuck Emerick, Matt Weir, John Foley, Susan Cort, Justin Engle
Back Row: Chris Brown, Patrick O’Rourke, John Payne, Brian Emberg, Tom Mehaffie, III, Matt Lena, Lauren Zumbrun

Fort Hunter Park

Fort Hunter Park seamlessly blends new amenities with environmental protection and a celebration of the area’s history and wildlife. The enhanced park includes two new boat launches that provide access to Fishing Creek and the Susquehanna River, new pedestrian paths, new seating to enjoy the scenic views, and new outdoor gathering spaces to accommodate park festivals.  It also includes expanded parking to make it easier for locals to access and enjoy these new park features.

To protect the scenic and tranquil environmental setting, engineers used innovative techniques to collect and treat stormwater like porous pavement. They also replaced two paved median areas with soil, stone and native plantings to retain and filter stormwater runoff while enhancing the appearance of the roadway. A new basin for collecting stormwater is designed to blend with the adjoining woodland edge, and herbaceous plantings and indigenous trees help to improve a local habitat area.

Signage in the enhanced habitat area describes local wildlife for park users, while other signs in the park inform visitors of past river activities such as Native American gatherings, early transportation, and coal reclamation.

Fort Hunter Park wins Premier Project award

Chad Gladfelter, Carl Dickson, John Hershey, Matt Bonanno, Steve Deck

ABOUT HRG

Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG) is a nationally ranked design firm providing civil engineering, surveying, and environmental services. The firm was founded in Harrisburg in 1962 and has grown to employ more than 200 people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.  For more information, please visit the website at www.hrg-inc.com.