Harmony needs a dose of Fred Rogers.

The pride of Pittsburgh and star of the children’s television show that bore his name for 33 seasons, Mister Rogers was widely cherished for a calm demeanor and understated wisdom. From 1968 to 2001, Rogers perfected his knack for simplifying the complexities of life without flushing away the wonder and mystery of the most mundane subject.

His topics included environmental hydraulics. Harmony now hopelessly struggles with this sub-category of Earth science, which involves the flow of water over, around and through surfaces.

On Monday, engineering consultant Herbert, Rowland and Grubic told Harmony council that it studied every suggested remedy for chronic flooding from the Connoquenessing Creek and can’t recommend any of them as a cost-effective long-term solution. The proposed solutions ranged widely in cost, from $5,000 to $30 million.

Harmony council members might glean encouragement from an early episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The episode first aired Feb. 22, 1971. It featured basic demonstrations of water volume, flow, and capacity for stored energy and kinetic energy.

The website neighborhoodarchive.com describes the action:

“Mister Rogers arrives with a set of test tubes ... He fills large and small tubes with colored water to show the differences in their volumes. After pouring some of the water in the sink, Mister Rogers sings ‘You Can Never Go Down the Drain.’ In the bathroom, he shows other drains that are commonly found in houses. ... In the back yard, he shows a garden hose before thinking about children playing outside in a sprinkler. As he cleans up the kitchen, Mister Rogers spills some of the colored water on the floor and on his feet. After cleaning up the spill, he changes his socks ... .”

So simple, so gentle, yet the lesson is conveyed. Why can’t it be this easy in Harmony’s neighborhood?

Viewed from above, via map or satellite image, it is a simple matter. The Connoquenessing’s path through the village looks so much like the S-curve of the plumbing drain under Mister Rogers’ sink or toilet, that it should be obvious to his young audience why the town has a flooding problem: It’s really a clog problem — no amount of flushing will fix that. But living with a flooded bathroom because of a drain malfunction? That’s not an option either.

The problem is that it gets confusing and frightening when the engineers start waving around complicated, multimillion-dollar options. Engineers do get paid, roughly, at a rate of 10 percent of the overall cost of whatever construction project they’re commissioned to design. And they just rejected a $30 million option. How much more will a working solution cost the taxpayer?

Somehow the prospect catapults us back to Mister Rogers’ show, but this time to another segment, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. In the 1971 episode, King Friday wants a waterfall at the castle, so he orders Handyman Negri to continuously pour water between two pitchers. Donkey Hodie suggests installing a real waterfall to be powered by the windmill at Someplace Else, so King Friday provides two days for the project to be complete.

King Friday didn’t have any cost estimates, and did not seem to care. Apparently price is no object in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

But here’s the heart of the matter: Mister Rogers is not an engineering consultant. He’ll refrain from telling horror stories that might frighten or stun people into postponing important decisions. He’ll avoid the complex technical details that might baffle and confound the common folk.

Consultants and political leaders are not Mister Rogers. They don’t have the luxury of always being nice when they must be something else.