PORT CARBON — The borough council is planning to hold a public meeting in the near future to talk about measures to control flooding at Mill Creek.
Since the flood of 2006, which caused more than $500,000 in damage to borough property, local officials have been discussing ways to prevent future flooding in the tributary that runs through the municipality. In January 2015, the state awarded the borough funding — a Growing Greener II Grant in the amount of $120,258 — to develop a watershed plan. A public hearing soon will be held on that plan, borough engineer James S. Tohill of Alfred Benesch & Co., Pottsville, said Tuesday at the council’s regular meeting.
“The next step will be to have a meeting with the public for their input. By then, Jimmy should have all his ducks in order to give everybody an opportunity to see exactly what the future plans are going to be. You think it’s going to be in February sometime, Jim?” council member Andy Palokas asked.
“Likely. Once we check with everybody involved regarding their availability, then we’ll schedule it. It’s likely it will be in February,” Tohill said.
“Then we’ll open it up to the public and get everybody’s input on what to do about flood control in the future,” Palokas, a member of the borough’s creek committee, said.
“The Growing Greener grant that we received, we’re working with it. We just had a meeting with Alfred Benesch. We’re going to have one more meeting with municipalities for their input. Then we will pick a date sometime in February to have an open meeting with the residents of Port Carbon to get their input on the flooding and what we can do to prevent future flooding. That’s what this grant is supposed to do for us,” Palokas said.
“And you’re going to alert us, right, by phone, so people know that there’s a meeting?” Deniece Krater, one of more than 15 residents who came to Tuesday’s meeting, asked.
“It will be published in the paper,” Palokas said.
“You can do that by phone, right?” Krater asked, referring to the borough’s emergency notification system.
“The phone is only for emergencies. It’s not for public meetings,” Palokas said.
“Public meetings have to be advertised,” council President Ray Steranko said.
“So we’ll have to advertise it in the newspaper,” Palokas said.
In July 2014, the borough hired Alfred Benesch & Co. to fill out the application for the Growing Greener II grant to develop the borough’s first watershed protection and restoration plan.
Tohill said the borough’s creek committee has been helping with its development.
“As we stressed over the past eight to 10 months at every public meeting, if anyone from the public has a suggestion bring it to us now. The further we get into developing our options and alternatives, the less budget we have left in our scope. I don’t want to wait until the end and get 10 people with 10 different ideas because then we can’t evaluate it. So if you have an idea, bring it forward,” Tohill said.
“We are still continuing to look into multiple options. There’s a lot out on the table. And maybe some of your ideas are the same ideas that we already have,” Tohill said.
“We did have a meeting with several members of borough council on December 14th. We pretty much went over everything we did to this point. And we wanted to make sure we heard ideas from anyone on council, because this is the council’s plan,” Tohill said.
“As far as our timetable, we’re looking at a completion somewhere in the June time frame,” Tohill said.
June will mark the 10th anniversary of the flood of 2006.