Vine St. drainage will be OK; water is safe/By Martha Knight

Port Allegany water customers along Vine Street will have their sluice pipes replaced, borough manager Richard Kallenborn reassured a Vine Street resident at the Port Allegany Borough Council meeting Monday night. Also, legal ads notwithstanding, Port Allegany water is perfectly safe, as usual.

Dottie Abbott, a Vine Street resident, asked what would be done to restore the drainage system that seemed to have been removed in the course of the ongoing water main replacement project.

Abbott said existing sluice pipes had been taken out, and the new water pipe was installed, then driveways were smoothed out. What would happen to the water that flows through ditches and sluices in wet weather, she asked, adding, “We don’t want it in the basement.”

Kallenborn called that a good question, and reassured Abbott that the drainage system would be restored, and new sluice pipes would be placed, after the new water pipes are installed.

“We’ll come back and put drainage over the new lines,” Kallenborn said. “No, we won’t leave you with a mess.”

“I know you won’t,” Abbott replied, in a determined tone.

Council member David Fair wondered what would happen if water pipe laid below drainage pipe breaks.. “If a water pipe breaks, would you have to dig up the drainage pipe too?”

Kallenborn said this is a situation that prevails in much of the borough as it is. But where the new water pipe is being installed, it will be in sound condition and unlikely to break for years to come.

The other ongoing water issue explained by Kallenborn has to do with slightly elevated copper and lead readings in two houses among the ten that are tested annually in state required water quality assurance.

The slightly elevated readings are enough to trigger responses dictated by regulations. These include public notice to the community and water customers, and a public education effort to municipal water users how to minimize their exposure to copper and lead from tap water.

The source is not the borough’s water, as supplied from deep wells, filtered and treated and sent through water mains to customers. The source is the older plumbing in some homes, where copper and lead pipes and lead solders and brass fittings and fixtures are in place.

Even with trace amounts of the heavy metals leaching into water in such homes, Kallenborn said, consumers can take such precautions as running water for a minute to flush out water that had stood in pipes. Also, replacing older plumbing with lead/copper-free piping is desirable.

“Our water is the same as it has been since Day One,” Kallenborn said. As for the phased replacement of old water lines, and repairs when leaks occur, “Nothing we don on main lines as lead in it, or copper.”

A feature of Port Allegany’s water supply system, used for generations until deep water wells were drilled in the 1960s, involved two dams on Skinner Creek, used to impound water.

Local governments are being asked to remove such dams so as to let streams return to their historic courses and conditions, Kallenborn said. Last year the borough applied for and received a grant from the American Rivers Association. This will cover the costs of removing the two dams.

The flood protection project is coming along, with design of the new dike taking shape in the offices of AECOM, Pittsburgh, project engineers. “Government works very slowly,” Kallenborn said. The seeming delays cause people to ask about “the dike project.”

Progress toward additional sewer upgrades in the borough, along with a two-mile southerly extension of sewer and water lines into Liberty Township, is indicated by additional questions from the PennWORKS funding source. Seeking more information is a sign the grant application is receiving serious consideration. If the 75 percent funding is approved, work could begin in the spring, Kallenborn said.

Borough secretary Sue Robosky said the new borough code books have been received. Copies of the old books should be brought to her office so exchanges can be made.