PRIORITY 3: Priority Areas (Introduction)

Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA)
2022 Stormwater Strategic Plan (SWSP)

PWSA released a strategic plan in December of 2022. The public has until June 30, 2023, to comment on this document and submit those ideas/concerns/questions for official review. The Mon Water Project is going to step through each Priority and provide insight.

Priority 3 of the Plan includes a lot of important data, analysis, and parameters used in the plan to determine the next steps. These layers of information were used to determine where and how to take action on stormwater within the city. This priority will require some individual blog posts to break down those parameters so we can build up our environmental literacy and be ready to tackle the priorities outcomes.

What the plan says:

Acknowledging climate change, racial justice movements, and regional updates in regulatory requirements, PWSA must keep in mind what we can afford to fix and where to prioritize that work first. They are looking to be cost-effective and deliver projects efficiently in areas of need.

“It’s almost a thing people are just kind of resigned to — when it rains we flood, we just deal with it. You know, we’re Pittsburghers. We’re self-sufficient. We don’t want it to stay broken, we’re just resigned to the fact that this is just the thing that’s going to happen.”
- Ben, Ambassador, Saw Mill Run

PWSA used four Lenses to help model the city. These lenses are:

• Localized Flooding

• Water Quality

• Equity

• Areas of Stormwater Opportunity

In order to see how each of the lenses plays out across the city, PWSA established 19 Planning Unites (Sewersheds/Watersheds) that are natural geographical boundaries within the PWSA sewer system. The Mon Water Project geography covers the 4 Mile Run and Upper Monongahela units. These drainage areas are points that flow to the same point.

Within each unit, data was collected to determine areas of localized flooding, the current water quality concerns, equity issues, and areas where stormwater can be managed (available land). This data determined an individual score for each lens within each sewershed. PWSA then overlapped the lenses for each unit, to find the sewershed’s final score.

Action Items:

3A: Concentrate Investments in Priority Areas

“Planning Units with high priority scores reflect a convergence of water quality, flooding, and equity concerns, or, at minimum, a high scoring in at least two areas. Projects within these areas should be considered strong priorities for capital improvements for stormwater management. Simply put, concentrating investments into priority planning units will help to solve the most pressing problems the soonest.” - PWSA

3B: Update Priorities based on future Wet Weather Plan

Regulatory requirements from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to meet the standards of the Clean Water Act. PWSA is currently negotiating with the EPA for the specific things they will be held to fix and in what timeline. This regulatory responsibly mainly discusses the stormwater issues that cause raw sewage to overflow into our rivers when it rains.

3C: Develop collaborative master plans for priority planning.

Establish curb by curb, pipe segment by pipe segment, and level plans for each unit, which will help to determine where the best projects can have the biggest impact. PWSA will need a strategic plan per unit. The unit plans will be developed with a full task force of partners and elaborate data within predictive models.

What I think:
”Planning to plan for more plans is a slippy slope.”
- AQ

It must feel defeating to individuals suffering from devastating flooding to read the language around this priority within the plan. Stormwater is a ‘now’ issue, and learning the long and lengthy process that will be necessary to reach the actual “project stage” can be really disheartening.

Although its only casually mentioned, its really important to acknowledge some background information. Only lightly mentioned within this section, PWSA is within a 18 month to 2 year negotiation with the USEPA on a completely separate plan (outside the scope of THIS plan, yet directly dependent on stormwater management, the focus of this plan). That OTHER plan is called the Wet Weather Plan. So the Stormwater Strategic Plan’s (this plan) reliance on future updates from regulatory requirements leaves room for uncertainty and delays. While negotiating with the EPA is important, the plan will struggle to have a proactive approach to stormwater management, without future modifications and reactions to regulatory demands. Which leave us, the public, with the feeling of, “what are we even doing here?” The SWSP needs a stronger emphasis on the immediacy and emergency need of stormwater management. A stronger emphasis on proactive measures would demonstrate a commitment to long-term sustainability and resilience.

It also states that the SWSP is only the first planning phase for each unit area. Following this SWSP plan’s finalization following public comment period and PUC approval, individual unit plans will need to be developed. Those unit plans can take up to 2-5 years to develop. There are 19 units and only a few individual unit plans will be worked on at a time.

What does that mean for the 4 Mile Run Watershed? They are not within the top five priority units based on the ‘lens’ analysis. What timeline should residents of the run expect for the FINAL 4MR PLAN that determines REAL solutions (Well…. not solution solutions, just a level of service that is to be expected, as complete flooding management in unachievable, per PWSA) for their devastating localized flooding? What is a reasonable timeline for actions and true solutions in areas experiencing impacts of climate change, localized flooding, and long standing disinvestment strategies that have allowed infrastructure to fail and decay?

Those infrastructure failures are literally swallowing buses.

Residents of the City of Pittsburgh are frustrated and fatigued. Fatigued from planning processes that feels like it never, ever ends. Frustrated with a system that continues to promise big change, and fails to deliver big solutions. Fatigued from flooding that holds our neighbors privately responsible for repair and restoration. Frustrated with promises that are always curtailed with limitations on those solutions, for liability and ‘level of service’ modifications.

Actions speak louder then words, remember?

I get it. We want to spend our money wisely. We want to have reasons for picking one project over another. We want to be accountable and transparent. I promise I completely understand all these things. I think every Pittsburgher does.

But PWSA must also understand that planning to plan for more plans is a slippy slope. Solutions and projects seem very, very far away.

Summary:

• 4 Mile Run should stay in the top 5 Priority Watersheds within the plan because of the significance of the Localized Flooding. Immediately solutions are necessary. 

• The Upper Monongahela should be moved up in priority listing based on the Equity and Stormwater Opportunities Lens and lack of data in localized flooding lens. 

• PWSA must have an extensive public comment and engagement period around its other negotiated Wet Weather Plan, utilizing all of its communications strategies outlined and promised in this plan. 

• PWSA must act quickly to develop a timeline for the Master Plans for each watershed so that organizations can understand next steps for their neighborhoods. 

• PWSA should use data already on hand to establish the initial stages of watershed based Master Plans (or other plans already in place), so that Watershed Groups and Watershed task forces can help with immediate solutions for flooding, while formalized plans are developed.