While flooding this summer may have exacerbated the situation, erosion issues at the Chubb Run watershed have been an ongoing problem, according to Venango County Planning Commission executive director Jason Ruggiero.
“We’ve been trying to address this since 2008,” Ruggiero said.
Ruggiero said issues with the watershed can be predominantly traced back to heavy rains in 2008 that, much like the flooding the area experienced this July, caused widespread and catastrophic damages.
Former U.S. Congressman John Peterson secured a $1 million federal grant a number of years ago to help fund research and construction for a solution that would put a stop to the major flooding events in the Chubb Run watershed.
“We were one of the last earmarks before the federal government put an end to the practice,” Ruggiero said.
But being one of the last to receive the grant, and therefore one of the last to spend it, had its drawbacks.
Ruggiero said the first hurdle came when it was learned the grant was under the City of Franklin and not Venango County.
“The City of Franklin didn’t move forward with the project for several years,” Ruggiero said.
The process to transfer the funds into the name of the county, after deciding the project was too large of an undertaking for the city, took another three to four years, he said.
Once the funds were transferred, Ruggiero said the county then began the process of hiring an engineer and producing a study that would then be used to build the solution.
“We spent a lot of money on engineering,” Ruggiero said.
At the end of the process, the county had a solution to the flooding but also major problems.
“Even though that earmark existed, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) was still in control of it,” said Ruggiero.
The issue, he said, stemmed from a FEMA condition that requires any project using emergency funds to meet a benefit-cost analysis. Ruggiero said this essentially means “if you can’t show that (FEMA is) going to get that million dollars back, you’re not able to meet that analysis.”
Ruggiero said the first strike against the benefit-cost analysis came when it was revealed the county and Sandycreek Township – where the watershed begins – had done “too successful of a job” while the flooding issues were corrected.
The second came when the engineering study returned with a plan that involved building three retention ponds in various locations across Sandycreek Township that would abate flooding issues.
The parcels of land required to build the retention ponds were on private properties, and though two locations were secured, the third could not be.
“It was the most impactful to the benefit-cost analysis,” said Ruggiero. “That piece of land was the key.”
Ruggiero said several other options were explored, but no other option besides the original were effective.
Then in 2018, the county was contacted by FEMA and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. The agencies informed the county that if it didn’t use the $1 million earmark soon, the funds would be taken away.
The county was able to negotiate a deal with the agencies that saw the county reimbursed for engineering costs incurred by the studies and use the rest for other emergency management projects in the area.
“Good stuff, but unfortunately not what it was meant for,” Ruggiero said.
Today, it is apparent the Chubb Run watershed is eroding, and with a summer of heavy rain and at least one flooding event in its history, residents in the area have once again raised concerns about their homes and properties.
Crawford doesn’t live in the house, but he does use it as a storage facility for his motorcycle parts business.
Not only did the summer floods sweep away parts of Crawford’s business, they whittled away at the very ground the house sits on.
“It just seems like if the creek runs through your property, you’re on your own,” Crawford said.
Crawford said he reached out to not only Sandycreek Township officials in an attempt to save his property, but the City of Franklin and PennDOT as well.
Sandycreek has said it doesn’t have the money or the means to alleviate the situation, and PennDOT and Franklin both said the property isn’t in their jurisdiction.
Ruggiero said that ultimately Crawford’s property, and those surrounding it, are a “community problem.”
Ruggiero said that whatever debris gets brought into the creek from the top of the hill would drift down into Franklin’s city limits, and if it isn’t caught then, it will go into French Creek and beyond.
“If Sandycreek does something with only the immediate problem in mind, maybe that problem passes down to someone else,” Ruggiero said.
He said that while several alternatives to the retention pond plan have been explored over the years – mentioning the county has even reached out to the Army Corps of Engineers the project would still “end up in the same boat” with the landowners and whoever headed the project looking at costs upward of $1 million.
“It will need a community approach. Right now we’re kind of stuck … we were there but we couldn’t meet their requirements,” said Ruggiero. “We’re going to keep trying.”
