Penn Township considers flood relief plan

Penn Township has taken flood relief plans for Hyland Road back to the drawing board.

Engineers this week presented an early proposal for several new culverts along the flood-prone road, which would cost about $1.1 million.

Engineers with Gibson-Thomas Engineering said their new proposal would do more to protect the region from flooding than a previous plan, which was created by the township’s previous engineering firm, the EADS Group.

During extremely heavy rains, some stretches of Hyland can end up more than 2 feet underwater, according to the Gibson-Thomas report.

The road currently has several concrete culverts ranging in size from 18 to 30 inches.

The EADS Group’s proposal would have replaced these with several much larger box culverts.

Gibson-Thomas proposes instead replacing each culvert with two or three large elliptical pipes, which can handle more water than the box culverts and are also a bit cheaper, according to engineer Mark Garfield.

“We went in and analyzed that, and decided to try to get as much capacity out of these areas as we can,” he said.

Township commissioners said they’d like to take a closer look at some potential complications with the proposal, like whether the pipes would be more easily clogged by debris or have higher maintenance costs than box culverts.

Once officials agree on a plan, they’ll need to seek funding. The township plans to apply for a loan through the state’s PennVEST program.

Last year, the township was granted a $1.45 million loan through PennVEST . However, commissioners decided last month not to accept the loan.

That money was to be split between two flood control projects, on Hyland Road and in the Harrison Park neighborhood.

Officials decided the proposed projects would not have done enough to handle the flooding problems. They separated the Hyland Road and Harrison Park projects, increasing the scope of both, according to township manager Alex Graziani.

In 2019, the township fired The EADS Group and hired Gibson-Thomas because commissioners were unsatisfied with the pace of work on paving and stormwater management projects, Graziani said.