The past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic have likely resulted in some communities putting long-gestating projects on the back-burner.

Thankfully, one of those does not include plans to address flooding in southwestern Butler County.

Although there's been less news about the issue following the approval in May of a study suggesting fixes to stem the tide of flooding in 10 municipalities, some of the municipalities are working behind the scenes to take next steps.

This is good news. While many things have come to a standstill due to the pandemic, natural disasters are not among them.

Recent updates on the matter include Harmony this week becoming the first of the municipalities to approve a $2,000 expenditure on a study to examine how to finance, begin and implement stormwater upgrades.

The study will examine which organization could best finance and deploy stormwater improvements in the 10 municipalities, which include Adams, Cranberry, Forward, Jackson, Lancaster and Penn townships as well as Evans City, Harmony, Seven Fields and Zelienople boroughs.

We're glad to see efforts moving forward.

While some municipalities originally expressed reservations about the project, spending money in advance on flood prevention can save money later that would be spent on cleaning up and repairing damage after a devastating storm.

A number of county residents are fully aware of how costly a bad storm can be. In recent years, the Eagle has published numerous stories about residents whose properties were heavily damaged by downpours, and spent a significant amount of money and time getting them back to being inhabitable.

One of the other benefits of the municipalities working together is that flood mitigation in one community can inadvertently help another municipality that is downstream.

Greg Such, president of the Harmony borough council, said the initiative is currently in the "beginning stages."

While residents would likely want to see action taken as quickly as possible, we're glad to see southwestern county municipalities working together to get their anti-flooding plans into effect.

— NCD