That 10%-to-25% goal is in the agency\u2019s $1.03 billion contract with Brayman-Lane JV, a joint venture of Saxonburg-based Brayman Construction Corp. and Charlotte-based Lane Construction Corp., recently rebranded as Steel City Tunnel Partners. That joint venture was deemed the lowest responsible bidder among three contestants for the dig, and now chooses its subcontractors.<\/p>\n
In ALCOSAN\u2019s contract with Brayman-Lane, the joint venture commits to hitting the floor of the 10%-to-25% range, listing 12 minority-owned, women-owned and disadvantaged firms slated for $104 million in subcontracts. Minorities, though, pick up just a sliver of that.<\/p>\n
Brayman-Lane signaled its intent to share the work with:<\/p>\n
Five women-owned business enterprises (WBEs), which are slated to get $92 million to $98 million of work
\nFive disadvantaged businesses (DBEs) at $6 million
\nTwo minority businesses (MBEs) at anywhere from $150,000 to $6 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re reaching the bare minimum, so it doesn\u2019t look like there\u2019s a good-faith effort to reach their 25%,\u201d said Toni Silva, a Pittsburgh-based supplier diversity consultant who recently retired from a longtime post as UPMC\u2019s senior director of supplier relations.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/DA_AlocosanMBE-Rich-4.jpg\")
Kim Kennedy, ALCOSAN director of engineering and construction, speaks during ALCOSAN’s Ohio River tunnel pre-construction public meeting at Allegheny Center Alliance Church on Oct. 6, in Allegheny Center. (Photo by Danny Arensberg\/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Black people get 1%, that would be the highest level they could get, that is not acceptable. That is nothing to be running down the street with pompoms about,\u201d said Tim Stevens, chairman of the Black Political Empowerment Project. \u201cWhen\u00a0 there is a $1.03 billion project and other major projects coming, two other major [tunnel] projects, we want to be at the table. We don\u2019t want to be under the table looking for scraps.\u201d<\/p>\n
ALCOSAN leader Williams said she \u201cwould love to have MBE, WBE contractors who could do the whole thing and then parse out subs to those who today are majority firms. But that’s not the reality. So we encourage participation and partnerships between primes and eligible subs.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she\u2019s \u201clooking at a variety of numbers. \u2026 I think we’re in a good spot. I think there are subs out there that can fulfill \u2014 legitimately fulfill \u2014 the commitment\u201d to diverse contracting.<\/p>\n
The overall MBE, WBE and DBE participation on the tunnel project is lower than that indicated for the other large, ongoing ALCOSAN project: the $346 million construction of a new Wet Weather Pump Station by Mascaro Construction. That contractor indicated plans for 11% total MWDBE involvement in its contract. ALCOSAN said that with construction underway, Mascaro has so far outpaced that pledge with 17% participation of minority- and women-owned businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn these two major projects where we\u2019re talking a billion dollars, it does not surprise me that the minority participation is this low. Am I happy and satisfied? Absolutely not,\u201d said Jacqueline Hill, president of the Pittsburgh branch of the NAACP<\/a>. \u201cNow, I am hopeful that the new mayor and the county executive will take this more seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n Public Source reached out to County Executive Sara Innamorato and Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O\u2019Connor \u2014 each of whom appoints three of the seven members of the ALCOSAN board. Neither responded with comment. ALCOSAN board Chair Emily Kinkead, a state representative, D-Brighton Heights, declined through a staff member to comment.<\/p>\n ALCOSAN spokesperson Amanda Mueller wrote in response to questions that the projects \u201chave construction schedules of over five years. Because this is a multi-year endeavor, the current percentage should be viewed as a snapshot in time rather than a final measure.\u201d<\/p>\n Two decades in the making<\/p>\n Ohio River Tunnel facts<\/p>\n 4.9 miles long The billion-dollar tunnel contract issued in April has roots in a 2007 agreement between ALCOSAN and the Department of Justice<\/a>, which demanded action to reduce what was then the annual overflow of 22 billion gallons of untreated, mixed rainwater and sewage into the three rivers. An associated 271-page consent decree<\/a> requires ALCOSAN to bring that flow below limits set by the federal Clean Water Act.<\/p>\n That\u2019s easy when it doesn\u2019t rain, but much harder when downpours fill sewers that carry combined wastewater and stormwater to ALCOSAN\u2019s treatment plant. Rain overflows the system, mixing with human waste and spilling into the rivers. Last year, ALCOSAN reported 47 overflows<\/a>, each time urging people to \u201cminimize contact with waterways.\u201d<\/p>\n The sewer agency serves 83 municipalities including Pittsburgh<\/a>, and its $3.7 billion, multi-decade strategy to reduce the overflows so far includes two big-ticket items:<\/p>\n At the Tuesday meeting in Allegheny Center, Alcosan representatives said they\u2019ve so far reduced the flow of stormwater and sewage into the rivers by 2.9 billion gallons a year, on their way to a total reduction of 7 billion gallons.<\/p>\n WBE expecting \u2018meager\u2019 markup<\/p>\n The tunnel project steers the bulk of its diverse contracting commitments to two women-owned firms, at least one of which has a longstanding relationship to one of the two prime contractors.<\/p>\n Madura Steel Sales, with an office in Sharon, is listed for an anticipated $42.4 million in payments for \u201cfabricated structural steel material supply.\u201d<\/p>\n Reached by phone, a Madura representative declined to talk about their involvement in the tunnel project. A Brayman representative declined to make anyone from that firm available for interviews, and did not immediately respond to seven questions sent by Public Source on Oct. 5. A Lane spokesperson said Brayman would be handling all inquiries.<\/p>\n Aspinwall-based Sandra Palone & Associates is slated to be paid $42.8 million for \u201cprecast concrete material supply,\u201d according to the contract. Palone\u2019s web page<\/a> lists Brayman as the WBE\u2019s partner on at least 10 projects \u2014 far more than any other listed partner.<\/p>\n Palone in a phone interview said she got to know the Brayman team more than a decade ago. She was working for a firm that went bankrupt, and Brayman bought her employer\u2019s Saxonburg concrete plant. \u201cI did help them reopen the plant,\u201d Palone said, then created her own firm in 2015.<\/p>\n She described her firm as a \u201cmicrocompany\u201d with no other employees, which would serve as a \u201cresale member\u201d of the tunnel digging team, working on finding the right fabricators to make concrete components for the project.<\/p>\n \u201cI will not be taking in $43 million,\u201d she said. \u201cMy markup is meager.\u201d<\/p>\n At least one MBE team is protesting the lack of diversity reflected in the tunnel contract.<\/p>\n Attorney James Baldwin sent an Oct. 5 letter to Innamorato, on behalf of three MBE firms: environmental engineering firm Peer Consultants<\/a> of Washington, D.C.; construction management and building supply firm Gil Berry and Associates<\/a>, of McKeesport; and engineering and consulting company TSE & B Consulting, of White Oak.<\/p>\n The McKeesport firm submitted information to all three bidders on the tunnel project, according to the letter, but has received no indication that it will get any work from Brayman-Lane.\u00a0<\/p>\n ALCOSAN\u2019s contract with Brayman-Lane confirms that the prime contractor reached out to Gil Berry and Associates on Sept. 15, 2025 \u2014 the same day the joint venture reached out to at least 60 other MBEs, WBEs and DBEs \u2014 got a quote for $5.8 million in trucking services and listed the firm as a \u201cpotential future option.\u201d<\/p>\n Baldwin wrote that between 16% and 20% of ALCOSAN ratepayers are minorities. (Allegheny County\u2019s<\/a> non-white population is around 25%.) \u201cUnless ALCOSAN is forced to change its supplier diversity policies, it is very possible that the largest project in the authority\u2019s history may have little to no MBE participation,\u201d Baldwin wrote.<\/p>\n Other minority-owned contractors reached by Public Source for this story, including two that were considered for work on the tunnel project but not selected, declined to comment.<\/p>\n Pump station\u2019s big MBE contractor is in Maryland<\/p>\n Like Brayman-Lane, North Side-based Mascaro\u2019s chief operating officer signed on to pursue ALCOSAN\u2019s goal to \u201cstrive to expend from ten to twenty-fire percent (10-25%) of the total cost of the contract for minority and women\u2019s business enterprise participation.\u201d<\/p>\n Mascaro then listed eight firms that it intended to work with \u2014 five minority-owned, three women-owned \u2014 which could expect to earn $39 million, or 11% of the total. Minority-owned firms would get the bulk of that, or $30 million.<\/p>\n By far the biggest chunk, nearly $20 million, would go to a minority-owned firm based in White Marsh, Maryland, called Acorn Supply & Distributing. Acorn\u2019s owner, Catherine Schultz<\/a>, did not respond to multiple emails and phone messages.<\/p>\n R&R Trucking, of Penn Hills, is in line to get $2 million of work from the Wet Weather Pump Station job, according to Mascaro\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n \u201cShit, $2 million? We probably haven\u2019t gotten $100,000,\u201d R&R owner Damon Givner said in an interview. He said he realized that it\u2019s a multi-year job and he could be called back but he \u201ccan\u2019t really say\u201d whether it\u2019ll approach $2 million.<\/p>\n Mascaro did not respond to requests for an interview.<\/p>\n Givner said he owns six trucks, gets work from several large contractors, but has seen his minority status used by primes eager to meet goals. Speaking generally, he said prime contractors \u201cjust put you in so they can get approval with the county and stuff like that. \u2026 They get a lot of people so that they can say they\u2019re using them, and they\u2019re not even actually being used. \u2018Take this little bit of money and we\u2019ll say that we used you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Contracting \u2018set asides\u2019 not in vogue<\/p>\n Government efforts to encourage minority-owned businesses date to the 1960s<\/a>, when there was a recognition that it would take more than bans on discrimination to reverse historic racism. In the 1970s, the federal government swung behind the idea of setting aside percentages of large contracts for MBEs. State and local governments also took up that approach.<\/p>\n Allegheny County, for instance, continues to pursue diversity goals<\/a> for its contracts, aiming\u00a0 for 13% of the work to go to MBEs and 2% to WBEs.\u00a0<\/p>\n The City of Pittsburgh sets targets<\/a> for professional services contracts of:<\/p>\n 18% MBE The city\u2019s Urban Redevelopment Authority mirrors<\/a> the 18% MBE and 7% WBE goals.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump\u2019s administration, though, has barred<\/a> diversity considerations in federal contracting, as part of its effort to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion programs.<\/p>\n ALCOSAN\u2019s Williams said of federal hostility to diversity goals: \u201cNobody has come to me, put a gun to my head and said: \u2018Don’t do that.\u2019 \u2026 If that were to change, there would be at least on my part a bunch of kicking, screaming and calling foul.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cParticularly under this new federal administration, DEI and set-asides are all gone now,\u201d said Della Clark, president of The Enterprise Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit<\/a> that helps small businesses to ramp up. Court decisions have also constrained MBE and WBE programs, requiring extensive analysis<\/a> of the effects of discrimination before governments can take race-conscious measures. In light of those rulings, said Clark, \u201cI don\u2019t think that will come back for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n Clark\u2019s organization has shifted its focus to preparing small businesses \u2014 notably including MBEs \u2014 to improve their finances and ability to borrow and build capacity. But she does not think public agencies should toss out goals to diversify big public contracts.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t want to see a billion dollars in Pittsburgh that doesn\u2019t flow to a lot of hands and a lot of communities,\u201d she said, noting that MBE involvement in big contracts also leads to mentoring that allows small firms to grow.<\/p>\n \u201cAny time you can have this type of project attached to those types of dollars in the region, that\u2019s significant, because it creates a lot of opportunity for small businesses and mid-sized companies,\u201d said Bar\u00e3ta Bey, president and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania<\/a>. The ALCOSAN projects are federally mandated, but they\u2019re not federally funded, he noted, and that frees ALCOSAN \u2014 a chamber member \u2014 to be ambitious.<\/p>\n Bey said he\u2019s seen diverse contracting efforts work in other cities in which he\u2019s worked. \u201cThis region? Oh my God. There\u2019s so much room for improvement in that.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevens said a good start would be monthly, public reporting by ALCOSAN of Ohio River Tunnel spending on diverse contractors.<\/p>\n The NAACP\u2019s Hill said diversity in contracting is really about \u201cgrowing our regional economy. Instead of looking at minority businesses as something we have to do, it needs to be viewed as an economic engine that has not been developed for its full potential.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/DA_ALCOSANTunnel-Lord-Morrison-15.jpg\")
State Rep. Emily Kinkead, D-Brighton Heights, speaks during ALCOSAN’s 24th annual open house on Sept. 19, in Marshall-Shadeland. Kinkead chairs ALCOSAN’s board. Behind and to the right is ALCOSAN Executive Director Arletta Williams.(Photo by Danny Arensberg\/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)<\/p>\n
\nTo run from East Allegheny to McKees Rocks
\nConstruction from 2027 through 2032
\nAverage annual construction workforce: 1,760
\nDownward shafts 15- to 50-feet across
\nTunnels 150\u2019 below the surface
\nHorizontal tunnels 14- to 18-feet wide<\/p>\n![\"Map](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/ex_tunnelpm_t2-6_public_ortbasemap_r2_20240209.png\")
Map of ALCOSAN’s Ohio River Tunnel plan. (Courtesy of ALCOSAN)<\/p>\n![\"Water](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/DA_ALCOSANTunnel-Lord-Morrison-8.jpg\")
ALCOSAN’s effluent outfall, where treated wastewater re-enters the Ohio River, on Sept. 19, in Marshall-Shadeland. The agency’s $3.7 billion Clean Water Plan aims to increase capacity to treat mixed rainwater and sewage, ultimately reducing by 7 billion gallons per year the flow of untreated sewerage into the rivers. (Photo by Danny Arensberg\/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)<\/p>\n![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/DA_AlocosanMBE-Rich-11.jpg\")
From left to right: Attorney James Baldwin and contractors Gil Berry and Lorne Berry look on during ALCOSAN’s Ohio River Tunnel pre-construction public meeting. (Photo by Danny Arensberg\/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/DA_ALCOSANTunnel-Lord-Morrison-6.jpg\")
People enter the main pump station while on a tour during ALCOSAN’s 24th annual open house on Sept. 19, in Marshall-Shadeland. The main pump station houses ALCOSAN’s wet well where wastewater arrives from 83 Allegheny County municipalities. (Photo by Danny Arensberg\/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)<\/p>\n
\n7% WBE
\n5% veteran-owned businesses
\n3% LGBTQ+-owned business.<\/p>\n![\"Water](\"https:\/\/www.publicsource.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/DA_ALCOSANTunnel-Lord-Morrison-7.jpg\")
ALCOSAN’s wet well is seen in their main pump station on Sept. 19, in Marshall-Shadeland. The wet well receives wastewater from 83 Allegheny County municipalities. (Photo by Danny Arensberg\/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)<\/p>\n