‘Plan B’ basin project in the works

Staff looking at fixing deteriorated basin adjacent to plan opposed by neighbors

Township officials are now starting to plan a new stormwater basin repair and restoration project, on the heels of strong opposition from residents earlier this spring to doing a different project nearby.

“Many of the comments we received at the neighborhood meeting we had, with the neighbors at Ivy/Grannary, were to take a look at this basin that’s failing first, before you start doing a new installation,” said township Manager Mike Lapinski.

In early May, dozens of residents from the area of Ivy Lane, Grannary Lane and Elbow Lane spoke out in a public meeting against plans the township presented at that time, to construct four new infiltration areas on grassy land behind their houses. Township officials said the plans were meant to help the township meet state and federal mandates for removing sediment from the nearby Wissahickon Creek, but residents pointed out overgrown areas and deteriorated remnants of earlier projects in the same area that they said the township should tackle first.

Lapinski and township Engineer Russ Benner gave the commissioners a preview of their next suggestion: instead of creating retention areas to the north and west of Ivy and Grannary, they’re now looking at a triangular parcel north of Grannary and west of Wheaton Lane, just east of the first proposed area, for fixes to drainage systems that are there now, but have deteriorated.

“This is a corrugated metal pipe, and the bottom is completely gone from that pipe,” said Benner, showing the drainage pipe running from an earlier basin area.

“This is where the water has breached the berm that’s there, that formed the dam for the basin, and it’s also dislodged from the head wall downstream,” he said.

Part of the new project could include repairing the breached pipe, installing a new head wall, and creating a new lined channel to facilitate water flow downstream, the engineer told the board.

Just east of those repairs, the township could convert what is currently overgrown grassland into an area better able to infiltrate water.

“What we would propose would be putting in a new wetland planting area, a water quality feature into the basins,” Benner said.

“We would take that area and put a little depression into it, and then wetland plantings, and that would qualify for a water quality feature,” he said.

According to Benner, the township had secured grant money from the National Fish and Wildlife Federation to cover at least part of the costs of the Ivy/ Grannary project, and the engineering firm has begun the process of asking if the funds can be moved to the adjacent project.

The Ivy/Grannary project was projected to remove roughly 13 tons of sediment from the water flow into the Wissahickon each year, while the new Wheaton Lane project would remove closer to five tons, he said. Total costs were estimated in the range of $250,000 for the complete Ivy/Grannary project as initially projected, while the newer Wheaton Lane project could cost roughly $100,000 less.

“That’s kind of our ‘plan B’ right now. We’re waiting to hear back from the National Fish and Wildlife Federation, as to the application

of any of those grant funds that we have for Ivy/ Grannary, to now do Wheaton,” Benner said.

Word on transferring the grant funds could come by mid-August, Benner said, and the close proximity of the new project to the originally proposed one should be a selling point.

“It’s the same area, same neighborhood, same drainage basin. Going somewhere else in the township would be difficult,” he said.

Only a sketch plan has been developed so far, the engineer told the board, and if and when the township hears back on the grant funding, more fully engineered plans could be developed, and more public meetings held to gather feedback.

“We would set up another neighborhood meeting, once we hear about the grant opportunity, to let them know about the board’s direction — that this is how they’ve pivoted in response to their concerns,” Lapinski said.

Commissioner Tom Duffy asked if repairing

the Wheaton Lane basins would have a positive impact on the planned retention areas to the west, and Benner said it should.

“This will have an impact because it’ll act, now, as a basin. The water now won’t just blow through the breach,” he said.

Work could begin on fixing the breach as soon as this fall, after word on the grant, meetings with the neighbors, and refining the plans, according to the engineer.

“This sketch plan is the only thing we’ve done, just to give everybody an idea of what we’re looking at,” Benner said.

“The thought process is, let’s get this done, and we can show everybody that this can get done and get fixed.”

Upper Gwynedd’s commissioners next meet at 7:30 p.m. on July 23 at the township administration building, 1 Parkside Place.