Forest Hills council details progress on MS4 work and ALCOSAN consent-order obligations

Council President, speaking at the Forest Hills borough council meeting, outlined the borough's progress toward federally mandated MS4 (municipal separate storm sewer) targets and steps under the authority consent order.

"The total required reduction for Forest Hills is just slightly almost a 115,000 pounds of sediment per year," the council president said, and noted completed park projects reduce roughly 16,000 pounds annually; a project currently out for bid adds another ~10,000 pounds. "The total reduction would bring us to roughly 23% of our mandate," the president said.

The president described the borough's status under the consent order with the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN). He said regionalization work transferring ownership of trunk sewers to the authority is about 50% complete and that manhole repairs referenced in the contract were complete for the line batch discussed.

Borough Manager Miss Watt and council members credited engineering guidance and grant funding for accelerating construction and for avoiding costs being passed to residents. "This work would not have been accomplished so quickly without the professional guidance and recommendations of our engineers from LSSE and our ability to acquire grant funding to offset the construction costs," the president said.

Council documents and the president's remarks indicate additional projects remain in planning or out to bid; officials said post-construction flow monitoring will be required before some work can be counted toward the MS4 targets. The president also reminded council members about maintaining civility and decorum during meetings.

Next steps: officials said a project now out for bid and a separate source-flow reduction contract starting construction are expected to increase the borough's compliance percentage; the council will review bid results and monitoring data as projects complete.