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Blair Planning has received a $30,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection for initial work on the first ever Blair County-wide stormwater management plan -- which is intended to help minimize flooding and stream pollution, while encouraging groundwater recharge.
The grant for Phase 1 of the multi-year project will pay to outline the scope of work, identify the county's watersheds, assess the impacts of past storms and set boundaries for the plan, Blair Planning Director Dave McFarland said Tuesday, after a meeting of the Altoona Planning Commission.
If his office does a good job, it will likely receive a grant for Phase 2, which would enable completion of the plan -- a document that will outline best practices for stormwater control during development and lead to creation of stormwater ordinances in all the county's municipalities, McFarland said.
It's likely there would be separate versions for the plan for urban and rural municipalities, McFarland said.
Current stormwater ordinances based on a late 1990s plan that covers only the Beaverdam Branch of the Juniata River watershed are not necessarily suited for other watersheds and are also out of date -- as best practices have changed, according to McFarland.
Stormwater practices then often called for extensive underground installations with pipes and perhaps holding tanks, plus fenced retention ponds, installations that tended to require high maintenance and that tended to send runoff into streams, according to McFarland.
Current practices include rain gardens, pervious pavement, parking lots without curbs that allow for sheet runoff into grassy areas and dual purpose installations -- like a retention area that doubled as a ballfield that sloped gently to an outlet pipe and a pond that doubled as a butterfly garden with benches, he said.
These require less maintenance and allow water to percolate into the ground, he said.
The overall planning project dovetails with flood-control recommendations in the county's hazardous mitigation plan, according to McFarland.
The new plan should be in place by 2027 or 2028.
Only two other Pennsylvania counties have never completed a countywide stormwater plan, McFarland said.
Blair came close around 2010, with a grant contract set to be finalized, McFarland said.
It came to naught when then-Gov. Ed Rendell "zeroed out" the program budget, he said.
Work on the plan will overlap with the Intergovernmental Stormwater Committee's ongoing efforts to comply with Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) pollution-reduction requirements set by the DEP -- and ultimately the Environmental Protection Agency, McFarland said.
Under the current seven-year MS4 permit that runs until the end of 2025, the ISC is obligated to reduce annual sediment runoff to streams in the urbanized area of Blair County by 10 percent -- or 1.4 million pounds per year.
Future ISC projects would be considered within the framework of the county-wide stormwater management plan, according to McFarland, whose staff has been cooperating with the ISC.
Under its next permit, the ISC could be obligated to reduce other types of pollution, including nitrogen, phosphorus and water volume, ISC stormwater coordinator Chelsey Weyant has said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.