After Keller Engineers’ Brian Smith first met with residents of the Lowe’s Island area in Hollidaysburg about a sediment reduction project for the Beaverdam Branch of the Juniata River, he was certain the project would need to be scrapped.

Now, after a few meetings with those residents, Smith thinks the odds have improved to 50-50 that they’ll consent for the Intergovernmental Stormwater Committee to pursue its work along that approximately 800-foot stretch of river.

The proposed $3.1 million floodplain restoration between Plank Road and Allegheny Street is not intended to control flooding, but there’s a chance that it could protect the properties of those three or four households from smaller storms, maybe even as large as events that are likely to occur every half-century, Smith said Thursday at a meeting of the committee.

“We’re trying to work within the parameters of the stream restoration project to benefit them as best we can,” Smith said.

The permit under which the committee is doing the project on a milelong stretch of river calls for laying back the banks to allow for a broader stream path during high water, which will slow the flow and result in less erosion, according to Smith.

But it doesn’t allow for construction of high banks or levees, he said.

Still, it might allow for those banks to end up a few inches higher, perhaps providing a bit of extra protection.

“I think the (Department of Environmental Protection) will work with us,” Smith said, “as long as we’re not creating a levee.”

Levees need to be constructed under a different type of permit, and levee projects need to be properly engineered and maintained.

The main problem for the family that has been most vocal about the project is not the height of the bank along their property, but overflows that happen either upstream or downstream, resulting in water running onto their low-lying land, according to Smith.

The closest bridge takes Allegheny Street over the river, and that one is high enough not to cause a problem, according to the family.

The next one carries Route 22, and the third one carries the railroad tracks that parallel Route 22, and those bridges cause problems, especially if a storm carries brush, branches and other debris that catch on the abutments and clog the openings, according to the family.

The bridges were built before much subsequent development occurred upstream, which has increased the volume of runoff during storms, Smith said.

For years, that development occurred without strict storm detention regulations that now mitigate runoff problems. The bridges were likely sized properly when they were built, but they’re not big enough now to handle the river when it’s raging, Smith said.

“The bridges are our biggest problems,” he said.

That problem is not unique to Hollidaysburg. “It’s all over,” he said.

The agencies that control the bridges can minimize the problems by taking advantage of maintenance permits that allow them to clear sediment and debris underneath the bridges and 50 feet upstream and downstream, Smith said.

Because of the issues that the committee and its engineers still need to resolve with the residents, the committee Thursday granted an extension on project design, which now needs to be presented in January.

That delay, coupled with the new deadline occurring during the winter, translates into a likely six-month delay for project construction, according to Smith.

It’s now probable that construction could begin in March 2025 and finish in late summer or early fall of that year, Smith said.

Whether the families agree to easements to allow for work along their stretch of riverbank will likely depend on upcoming meetings at which committee representatives will show them project designs, officials said.

One concern of the most-vocal family was that laying back the bank along their property would mean lowering the bank, because the ground there slopes down into their property.

The family needn’t worry, because the design calls for maintaining the height of the bank, even if the bank ends up in an area that is currently lower, Smith said.

In contrast to the property owners in the Lowe’s Island area, some in the project area are enthusiastic about the project, said committee stormwater coordinator Chelsey Weyant.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.