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Gary Lobaugh, director of government and external affairs\u00a0for Pennsylvania American Water, promotes the company\u2019s $2 million wastewater improvement project at Alameda Park on Tuesday, May 12. William Pitts\/Butler<\/p>\n
BUTLER TWP \u2014 After a five-month hiatus caused by a wastewater improvement project, Alameda Park\u2019s main trail is once again open to hikers, bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania American Water \u2014 which spearheaded the project \u2014 held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, May 12, to mark the trail\u2019s reopening.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very important for the community to have this open,\u201d said Lance Welliver, director of Butler County Parks & Recreation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just enjoy the collaborative process and relationship, working relationship, that we have with Pa. American Water,\u201d said county Commissioner Kim Geyer. \u201cWe thank you for what you do here in Butler County. We\u2019re all benefactors of that generosity and investment and just want to say thank you for making our park to be a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n
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From left, Butler County Commissioners Leslie Osche, Kevin Boozel and Kim Geyer speak at the reopening of the Alameda Park trail on Tuesday, May 12. William Pitts\/Butler Eagle<\/p>\n
Work on the wastewater improvement project began in December 2025, with Pennsylvania American Water looking to replace outdated wastewater infrastructure and increase flow capacity to suit the needs of a fast-developing area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe immediately recognized that this part of the system is hydraulically deficient,\u201d said project engineer Walter Jenko. \u201cWe realized that the pipe needs to be bigger and needs to have additional flow capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to external affairs manager Lauren Camarda, Pennsylvania American has spent $2 million on the project so far, installing 3,300 feet of new wastewater main and 26 new maintenance hole access points.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an aging pipe,\u201d Camarda said. \u201cIt was upgrading something that had reached the end of its useful life and increasing the capacity to meet the needs of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Gary Lobaugh, Pennsylvania American\u2019s director of government and external affairs, the wastewater improvement project offers benefits to the park, specifically, its adjacent waterways.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis project is also helping to safeguard Sullivan Run and help ensure cleaner local watersheds by keeping that overflow out of it,\u201d Lobaugh said. \u201cToday is about much more than reopening a bike trail. It\u2019s about much more resilient wastewater systems and cleaner watersheds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis line had an overflow in the past. That means that raw sewage spilled out into the stream. That is not allowed under state environmental regulations,\u201d Camarda said. \u201cThis solves that issue and makes sure that that doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The actual wastewater improvement project is not quite finished, according to Camarda.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a little part on the other side of Route 422 to finish,\u201d Camarda said.<\/p>\n
In addition to hosting the ribbon cutting, Pennsylvania American Water made a $25,000 contribution to Butler County Parks & Recreation.<\/p>\n
\u201c(We\u2019re) grateful that they\u2019re kind enough to do that,\u201d Welliver said. \u201cThe work they\u2019ve done is fantastic. The contribution of $25,000 is very beneficial to put back into the park facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Alameda Park, the trail reopening comes just in time, as the trail is scheduled to host a \u201cBack The Blue 5K\u201d on Sunday, May 17.<\/p>\n
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From left, Lauren Camarda, external affairs manager for Pennsylvania American Water;\u00a0Walter Jenko, senior project engineer; Gary Lobaugh, director of government and external affairs; Brock Hinton, engineering project manager; Michelle Cavallo, senior supervisor; and Joel Hillard, senior superintendent of operations, cut the ribbon on the newly reopened trail at Alameda Park on Tuesday, May 12. William Pitts\/Butler Eagle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gary Lobaugh, director of government and external affairs\u00a0for Pennsylvania American Water, promotes the company\u2019s $2 million wastewater improvement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3035,3027,3022,3042,3048,3051,1610,3030,3028,31,3029,3034,3025,3047,3041,3024,3045,3033,3023,3036,182,3049,3039,139,3026,28,30,29,3040,39,3031,3044,3043,3032,3050,3038,3037,3046],"class_list":["post-191105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bruin","tag-butler","tag-butler-eagle","tag-cabot","tag-callery","tag-cherry-valley","tag-community-news","tag-connoquenessing","tag-cranberry","tag-crime","tag-east-butler","tag-eau-claire","tag-education-news","tag-evans-city","tag-fairview","tag-government-news","tag-harmony","tag-harrisville","tag-high-school-sports-news","tag-karns-city","tag-local-news","tag-mars","tag-mount-chesnut","tag-news","tag-obituaries","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-petrolia","tag-political-news","tag-portersville","tag-sarver","tag-saxonburg","tag-slippery-rock","tag-valencia","tag-west-liberty","tag-west-sunbury","tag-zelienople"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}