Flooding Through Pittsburgh Area Continues

Rain is expected to continue in Pittsburgh into this evening turning into snow around two in the morning. The rain along with melting snow is leading to flooding throughout the region.

John Darnley, Forecaster for the National Weather Service, the Ohio River and its tributaries will flood soon. "When we talk about this type of flooding along the Ohio River. It's the type where the Wheeling Island floods at 38 (feet) and it's forecast to go to 41.6. So we're looking for some minor to major flooding all along the Ohio with just some moderate flooding throughout the Monongahela through Pittsburgh."

Darnley says that the Mon Wharf will be flooded through the beginning of next week into Tuesday. He says the Point along with the Tenth Street Bypass will flood at midnight tonight, with the Parkway Central flooding at 8 am tomorrow during rush hour.

Green Infrastructure Database in Development

The local nonprofit 3 Rivers Wet Weather is developing an online tool to help property owners decide where to place green infrastructure.

The online database will help anyone from residential property owners to municipal planners decide where their green infrastructure project would be most effective in reducing sewer overflow.

3 Rivers Wet Weather Executive Director John Schombert says one of the website’s tools will give private property owners a cost-benefit analysis for each site they’re considering.

“The value of the system also is that we will connect people to the marketplace so they can find the plants and the contractors and the designers, perhaps for more elaborate rain-gardens, that will help them develop their site,” says Schombert.

Schombert says the website will also include a more technical application to be used by municipal engineers for public green projects.

He says the region is very prone to sewer overflow, with overflow events happening about 75 times each year. Schombert says in some parts of the region, just one-tenth of an inch of rainfall can cause overflow.

“[For] half our recreational season, we show impacts in the rivers from wet weather overflows that affect recreation, and even potentially can affect water supplies.”

Schombert says the website will also serve as an overall document of the location and effectiveness of green infrastructure in the region. The online database is slated for completion by March of 2012.

Mon Drinking Water Might be "Brackish"

Pennsylvania environmental officials say that levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) in the Monongahela River have fluctuated above the water quality standard for taste and exceeded acceptable levels for drinking water. Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger says water treatment plants are not equipped to remove the solids and the water may taste "salty" or "brackish." Hanger says if you're concerned you might use bottled water for drinking and preparing foods till the solids decrease. Sources of the solids include sewage treatment plants, stormwater runoff, metal mining, abandoned mine drainage, vegetable processing and agricultural chemical manufacturing.

Emsworth, Dashields Main Lock Chambers Reopening

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has reopened the main chamber of Dashields Lock and Dam on the Ohio River. Crews are currently refilling the dewatered Emsworth main chamber which is to be reopened Sunday at 11 p.m.
The 100 foot by 600 foot main chambers at both Dashields and Emsworth Locks and Dams were closed since July 6th to make critical repairs to the lock structures. The small chambers at each facility remained open during that time. Crews repaired three 110 to 125 ton miter gates in the main lock chambers at Dashields. These are the large gates that open and close when vessels move through the locks.
At Emsworth, workers repaired the main chamber's deteriorated emptying valves that are used to lower water levels in the lock.
District Engineer Colonel Michael Crall said "it's not easy keeping these aging structures operational. The facilities are more than 80 years old.

River Sweep 19 Looks For Help

Pennsylvania River Sweep is looking for volunteers for its 19th annual cleanup event later this month. During the sweep volunteers meet at specified spots along the region’s three rivers to pull trash out of the water and off the shoreline. In recent years the event has been coordinated with similar cleanups along the length of the Ohio River. PA River Sweep coordinator Betsy Mallison says last year 600 volunteers collected 58 tons of trash. The coordinated event saw 21-thousand people collect trash along 3 thousand miles of shoreline. This year’s River Sweep runs from 8am-noon Saturday, June 20th. Mallison says unlike in years past, volunteers do not need to register in advance. She says people can simply checkout all of the designated sites on the web and then show up on the day of the event ready to work. People of all ages can volunteers but minors must be accompanied by an adult. Mallison says the amount of trash has been decreasing and the water quality is improving in and around Pittsburgh. She says the number of large items such as refrigerators has been decreasing but she says they still find plenty of plastic, tires and construction debris. Mallison says the one-day clean up effort is only half the battle. She says it is also an attempt to raise river and environmental awareness. Nancy Barylak of ALCOSAN says people need to realize that everything they throw out of their cars and boats and drop on the riverfront trails winds up in the rivers. She says, “People need to stop littering.”

Braddock Locks and Dam Opens After Repair

The Army Corps of Engineers re-opened the large chamber at the Braddock Locks and Dam in the Monongahela River Sunday morning after emergency repairs that took 53 hours and cost half a million dollars.

The Braddock Locks and Dam date back to 1906 and had a major rehabilitation in 1953. Dave Sneberger, Chief of Locks and Dams for the Army Corps of Engineers, says locks on all Pittsburgh's rivers, and indeed the whole country's river system, are old and haven't gotten the resources to maintain them adequately.

Barge traffic had to be diverted to the small chamber, according to Sneberger, which increased lockage time from one hour to as much as eight hours, costing the towing industry hundreds of thousands of dollars. Rehab is scheduled in the next few weeks to strengthen the other gates in Braddock.