SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Pennsylvania American Water is highlighting a newly completed restoration project at Darcy Park in Scranton.<\/p>\n
The work comes as part of a settlement with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection after sediment was released during a major dam rehabilitation project in Dunmore.<\/p>\n
Friday, local leaders got a look at how that cleanup has also improved the park and Roaring Brook.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs part of the dam project, we were working on it, and we did have some sediment release,” said Daniel Rickard, engineering director at PAWC. “The sediment worked its way down here to this area and built up in the stream. We were able to remove that, reestablish vegetation, stabilize the bank areas, reestablish the aquatic life, actually help clean it up, and it\u2019s more robust now than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania American Water says crews removed that sediment, restored roughly 580 feet of streambank and added native trees, shrubs and boulders to improve aquatic habitat.<\/p>\n
The walking trail was also relocated, with terraced steps giving visitors better access to the water. They also established access areas for handicap-accessible fishing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good to see that it came to a good resolve,” said State Representative Jim Haddock. “Look, an accident happened. They pay the penalty and part of this extra work here is good for the environment and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $680,000 project is part of a corrective action plan required by the Pennsylvania DEP following the sediment release.<\/p>\n
But the work is also highlighting a bigger challenge facing the region, aging infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the aging infrastructure, this dam was from the 1800s. It\u2019s about being proactive and understanding that there\u2019s going to be a useful life and end of that useful life to these facilities,” said Rickard.<\/p>\n
That No. 7 Reservoir Dam is more than 150 years old. Its rehabilitation project carries a price tag of about 17 million dollars.<\/p>\n
And as water main breaks continue to expose the age of infrastructure across Scranton, Pennsylvania American Water says planning ahead is key.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s planning ahead again, working without partners at the Department of Environmental Protection and other regulatory agencies to get plans and permitting in place, and basically have a long-term plan on how to replace, reinforce, and rehabilitate this aging infrastructure in the city, ” said Rickard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Pennsylvania American Water is highlighting a newly completed restoration project at Darcy Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-274212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274212","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=274212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}