An ongoing project of the state's Department of Environmental Protection requires municipalities to control the amount of pollutants and sediment that runs into local waterways, but no funding is available to go with the plan's stringent requirements.

The Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, known as the MS4, affects the southern portion of Butler County. An MS4 is required in designated municipalities whose stormwater systems are not tied to a sewage system.

Tom Decker, DEP spokesman for the Northwest Regional office, said municipalities containing the two large and 1,059 small MS4s designated in Pennsylvania are required to apply for a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit and develop stormwater management programs.

Some, like Evans City, have done so and have a permit in place, while others, like Saxonburg, have applied for and received a waiver.

Justin Dickey, environmental engineer manager at DEP's Northwest Region, explained that unlike a densely urbanized area like Pittsburgh, Butler County's population is more spread out and development is concentrated in certain areas.

For that reason, many municipalities in the county have waivers instead of permits.

Receiving an MS4 permit through the DEP means a municipality has met the requirements in reducing the sediment that washes from man-made surfaces such as roofs, parking lots and streets.

Lee Dyer, president of Evans City council, said the borough has an updated MS4 plan that was filed two years ago.

To attain the permit, Dyer said Evans City was tasked with reducing the sediment in the borough's runoff by 10 percent.

The number of times the borough's streets are swept per year, adding swales — or roadside ditches — to catch and filter sediment, cleaning out existing swales and removing particular grasses in the swales are among the steps Evans City took to meet its MS4 requirements, Dyer said.

The cost for the work to meet the MS4 requirements was about $10,000, he said.

“We were found to be in pretty good shape at the beginning,” Dyer said. “Many places had to do far more than we had to do.”

Permit approval also was made easier, Dyer said, because the dam and holding ponds at the borough's former water plant were found to meet MS4 requirements.

Saxonburg Mayor Bill Gillespie said the borough received a five-year waiver, but he is concerned about the second phase of the program that is expected to roll out in 2023.

He explained that if expensive improvements are required in the next phase of the MS4 programs, such as a creek restoration, council may be forced to add a fee paid by residents.

And the problems might be exacerbated by neighboring municipalities' lack of MS4 designation or their remediation actions in the next phase of the MS4 program.

“If Saxonburg gets caught up in the regulations, but Jefferson and Clinton (townships) don't, then that penalizes the people who live here in the borough,” Gillespie said.

For that reason, Gillespie wants to sit down with county officials to talk about the MS4 and its burden on smaller municipalities.

“There should be a regional look at it and not a small-municipality look at it,” he said.

Gillespie said Saxonburg is taking steps now in the hope that it will have some remediation measures in place for the next phase of the MS4 program.

Like Saxonburg, Winfield Township has a waiver on the MS4 program, but is trying to stay ahead of the curve and avoid large expenses from enacting MS4 measures all at once in the future.

Adam Hartwig, Winfield Township secretary, said he maintains a spreadsheet with all township facilities that would affect future MS4 requirements, plus an inventory on each time stormwater facilities are maintained.

He also keeps track of sediment-reducing activities such as street sweeping, cleaning catch basins and the amount of anti-skid material used on snowy roads versus salt, as anti-skid deposits sediment into creeks.

Hartwig agreed with Gillespie that any future MS4 measures taken in Winfield could affect municipalities downstream or in neighboring townships or boroughs.

“Unfortunately, it's going municipality to municipality,” he said. “It needs to be a regional approach.”

He said to adopt and collect a stormwater fee like the one being instituted in Cranberry Township, a municipality would need to form an authority, which would be expensive.

Hartwig favors municipal leaders sitting down with the county commissioners, whom he called “forward-thinking,” and Mark Gordon, county chief of economic development and planning, to decide how the unfunded MS4 mandate will be dealt with in smaller, financially struggling municipalities.

Gordon said he doesn't disagree with a collaborative approach to the MS4, but he advocates neighboring municipalities getting together to learn from one another and prevent negative effects on their neighbors.

“They could work collaboratively with each other to look at how you get the biggest bang for the dollar,” he said.

Municipalities could also apply for low interest loans through the county infrastructure bank, Gordon said.