Both sides in flooding problem blame each other
LUZERNE TWP. – The Brownsville Municipal Authority’s superintendent is convinced that flooding during heavy rains is due to the township’s storm water drainage problem. While Jim Knisley, superintendent, admits that “some pipes” within the sewer system are old, he said flooding occurs only during heavy rains, which to him means it’s a storm-water problem and not “old, leaky” pipes causing the flooding as township supervisors have said.
The issue has come up after a number of Hiller homes again were flooded after heavy rains earlier this month.
Fred Provance, chairman of the authority, blamed storm water from Luzerne flowing into the sewer lines as the reason for the flooding.
But township supervisors have said that the township’s storm drains are not responsible for the flooding.
Knisley said an overflow of the sanitary sewer lines has caused flooding in the basements of about five homes in Hiller after heavy rains. He said during less heavy rains, the number of homes that suffer damage is one to two.
Township Supervisor Ted Kollar said he has corrected a storm water problem at the Army Reserve Center in Hiller and also at Bull Run Road and Brosia Road. He said that even after the correction, the municipal authority has experienced flooding, which he says proves it’s not the township’s storm water causing the problem.
“If it’s not the storm water, then why do we only have flooding when it’s raining? Our pipes are large enough to handle sanitary, not storm, water,” Knisley said.
But Kollar said the flooding is due to the authority’s “old, leaky pipes.”
Kollar said storm water causes the flooding, but not storm water coming from the township’s drains.
“Their pipes are old, so ground water and spring water are running into them. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out,” Kollar said. “If the flooding was caused by our storm drains, people would be getting rain water in their basements, but the water is coming from the sewerage lines, because nothing but sewage comes up from the basement.”
But Knisley said, “We have some pipes that are old. We had camera work done and they are not that bad. If you pulled them now, when it’s not raining, I bet they aren’t even 10 percent full. The pipes can handle the sewage. It’s when it rains that we have problems. The pipes should be able to handle sewage, not storm water.”
Acknowledging work done by the township supervisors, Knisley said he believes there are even more areas where the township’s storm water is flowing into the sewer lines.
He said the work done at the Army Reserve Center did not alleviate the problem.
According to Knisley, an 8-inch pipe carrying storm water that was tapped in to a manhole at the Army Reserve Center was cemented shut, but he said the water was never rerouted, so it still makes its way into the sewer lines.
“They have definitely made an effort to correct the problem, but there is more work to be done,” Knisley said. “Blocking off the pipe but not rerouting the water didn’t help. When it rained, the water overflowed the manhole. It actually blew dirt up out of the ground. The water is still getting into the system. There’s not much I can do. I can’t change their water routing.”
But Kollar said that after the pipe was closed, water was rerouted to a catch basin and piped out to the end of the hill there and emptied into the township’s storm drains.
He said, though, that little water makes it to the storm drains because most of it is absorbed into the ground.
Kollar said that the township also rerouted storm water along Bull Run Road and Brosia Road, tapping into state drains there. Knisley said that move has helped out.
“I hate to point fingers, because it’s an underground problem and there could be places that we just have not found yet,” Knisley said. “I think they have problems and we have problems, but they can’t say that it’s not their responsibility at all.”
Kollar said that he has done everything he can to help the authority, but he said he can do only so much.
“I don’t work for the sewerage authority. I work for the township. I did all I can do. I was just trying to help out, because I wouldn’t want my basement flooding every time it rained,” Kollar said.
Knisley said until the problem is solved, he will keep “poking away at it until we find the trouble areas.
“We’re working to find the problems. We know the storm water is one of them.”