Revised plan’s price tag drops

Consultant estimates $1.4 million price tag for projects, down from $5 million last year

The numbers are coming into focus of what Lansdale officials will have to do over the next five years to meet new state stormwater regulations, and the news is getting slightly better for the borough’s bottom line.

Stormwater engineer Kevin Flynn gave borough council an update at a recent council meeting on the borough’s pollutant reduction plan, required to meet state requirements for sediment reduction in the three watersheds

Lansdale touches.

“The state has developed reduction targets associated with each of these bodies, that need to be addressed, through implementation of the program, over the next five to 10 years,” Flynn said.

“The bottom line is, the borough is required by the state to reduce sediment pollution to those three water bodies of about 300,000 pounds per year,” he said.

Flynn and his engineering firm AKRF Inc. have developed and updated a plan detailing the current annual sediment and phosphorous loads from borough sources into the Wissahickon Creek, Neshaminy Creek, and Skippack Creek watersheds, and have calculated the TMDL (total maximum daily load) and the reductions needed from each. The borough’s deadline for its next municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection is Sept. 16, and the new permit requires an updated sediment plan and a new phosphorus plan, which Flynn detailed for council.

“That’s actually 6 percent less, since last year, what needs to be reduced, in terms of sediment. So it’s really a moving target, and the state’s program will continue to change, either for good or for bad, beyond this permit cycle as well,” he said.

For the Skippack Creek watershed, which is located in the southwest portion of the borough, Lansdale’s updated baseline sediment load is estimated at 613,209 pounds per year, and the state is requiring that number be reduced by 18 percent, or roughly 110,378 pounds per year. For the Wissahickon Creek watershed, the updated baseline sediment load is 353,814 pounds per year, and the required reduction is 26 percent per year, or 91,992 pounds per year. And for the Neshaminy Creek watershed, two sub-basins have been measured with sediment loads of 228,044 and 62,353 pounds per year respectively, which will require reductions of 16 percent (36,487 pounds per year) for the first and of 56 percent (34,918 pounds per year) for the second. For phosphorous, the numbers are much smaller: an estimated 84.8 pounds per year from the Wissahickon, 156.5 pounds per year for the Skippack, and 154.6 and 37.3 pounds per year for the two Neshaminy sub-basins.

“We’ve been working on the TMDL plan for two years now, and the goals of the plan are to reduce those pollutants, to improve the health of the water bodies, the Wissahickon, Neshaminy, and Skippack creeks, and to do that in a way the borough demonstrates they’ve reduced the pollutant loads,” Flynn said.

How to reduce those numbers? Flynn said those targets can be met by a combination of BMPs, best management practices such as new stormwater ponds, basins, rain gardens, and underground storage, along with projects to restore stream banks and buffers and additional street sweeping. The engineering firm has evaluated more than 30 potential projects within the borough that could help meet those goals, and identified two to be top priorities: restoration of stream banks in Whites Road Park and along a corridor running approximately parallel to Cannon Avenue on a tributary of the Neshaminy.

“The sediment reduction requirements, those TMDLs, those aren’t going away. The phosphorus TMDL, that’s in active negotiation and legal challenge at a state level,” he said.

“We’re confident the strategy we developed is the most advantageous, assuming that those sediment reduction requirements are not going anywhere,” said Flynn.

How much would the two projects cost? Early estimates are that the Whites Road project would cost roughly $980,000, which could be covered by state grant funding, and the Neshaminy project is estimated to cost an additional $430,000, leading to a total estimated price tag of $1.41 million. Two grant applications have already been submitted, seeking state funds for the larger project, Flynn said — and the bottom-line number is much less than an estimate of over $5 million from a similar presentation and projections last year, based on models and

calculation methods that have since been updated.

“The borough is benefiting, I think, from the changes to the program. I want to say that with caution, because it’s a moving target with the state. Things could change within the next five years,” Flynn said.

Councilman Jack Hansen asked if litigation several years ago between the borough and DEP had to do with the same requirements, and Borough Manager Jake Ziegler said that litigation dealt with the phosphorous requirement for the Neshaminy only.

“This is now, in effect, looking at total phosphorous over the whole borough, not just specifically the Neshaminy,” he said.

Now that the new goals have been calculated, Hansen asked, “is this attainable for us?”

“We think it is,” Ziegler replied — “we think that this is what DEP is looking for, and we have a great amount of confidence in that, but it’s a moving target, and you never know exactly what DEP will say.”

Mayor Andy Szekely asked what would happen if the borough is unable to secure the grant funding for the larger project, or chooses not to proceed with any of the projects meant to hit the target.

“What would be the course of action of DEP if we couldn’t come up with the, say, $980,000. What teeth do they have for enforcement?” Szekely asked.

Flynn replied that DEP would likely enter into further negotiations with the borough, but the state agency is expanding their staffing to better monitor municipalities’ progress.

“There are hundreds of municipalities now that previously didn’t have the same requirements that Lansdale had, that are now required to develop and submit similar plans,” he said.

“There’s a conscious effort to step up resources and enforcement. How that plays out, we’ll see,” Flynn said.