EAST ROCKHILL — The remnants of Hurricane Ida brought a larger than usual storm to the region on September 1, but was just one more example of ongoing problems with flooding at a Stone Edge Road bridge, residents of the Ridge Run development told the East Rockhill Township Board of Supervisors at the board’s September 28 meeting.
“I guess I want to say our worst nightmare has happened,” resident Lou Ditonno said. “During the last storm, our whole development was isolated.”
The Stone Edge Road bridge was flooded, as was part of Hill Road, he said. East Rockhill Road wasn’t flooded, but there was a tree down blocking that road, he said.
His next door neighbor had to abandon his vehicle because of the flooding and walk through water to get home, Ditonno said.
“Just think if there was an emergency,” he said. “All three exits were blocked. All three were unpassable.”
“They keep saying, oh, these are 100-year, 200-year storms. We’re having them every couple months sometimes,” resident Tom Reiss said. “This is crazy. You’ve got to be able to do something about it.”
The Stone Edge Road bridge has flooded more than once this year, resident Larry Wheatley said.
“It’s not every 100 years. It’s not every 10 years. It’s every time it rains hard, it’s gonna flood,” he said.
Concerns about the flooding at the bridge had also been raised at the July and August township meetings, leading to discussion of the issue being included on the September agenda.
When Ridge Run was approved in 1988, the bridge was designed to flood, Steve Baluh, township engineer, said.
When the Reserve at Woodbridge was approved in the late 1990s, a $225,000 contribution was made to the township for work to be done on the bridge, he said.
A plan was created to hollow out part of the flood plain and raise the bridge two feet, he said.
In order to have the bridge totally above the flood plain, it would have to be raised four feet, which is, “for technical reasons, near impossible to do,” Baluh said.
“What we could do in this situation is minimize how many times the bridge floods,” he said. “In the worst storms, you’re always gonna have some flooding on that bridge.”
Raising the road and the bridge by two feet would back up more water, so easements would be needed on both sides of the stream, he said.
There were discussions with property owners about the easements, but no agreement reached, he said.
“Since we couldn’t secure the easement, essentially work on the project ceased in roughly 2004,” Baluh said.
The first thing the township should now do is have him meet with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to review the previous plan, he said.
“It’s been 20 years. Their regulations have changed,” he said.
“Site conditions have changed to a certain degree. The frequency of flooding obviously has changed,” Baluh said, “so we would need to determine with DEP is this still a viable option or can we work some other option out?”
The $225,000 would have covered the cost of the work when it was first designed, but not now, he said.
The board approved having Baluh meet with the DEP to discuss the current options.
“We have to fix this. No question,” board member Gary Volovnik said.
In another matter at the meeting, Arthur Hallett was appointed to fill a vacancy on the East Rockhill Township Park and Recreation Board. The current term runs through the end of the year after which he can be reappointed, Township Manager Marianne Morano said.
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East Rockhill looking into options for dealing with bridge flooding - The Reporter
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