How collaborative stormwater projects could help Butler County communities protect homes, businesses and infrastructure
Spring showers may bring flowers, but they also bring floods. In April 2024, the lower end of Harmony’s business district was underwater twice — just two weeks apart.
And as the official start of summer neared, motorists in the City of Butler found themselves in a similar predicament. High water levels following heavy rains amid flash flood warnings prompted road closures twice this June.
Flooding, which leaves home and business owners with muddy basements, isn’t a new problem across well-watered Butler County. The Connoquenessing Creek, in particular, has a long history of overflowing its banks during heavy or extended rainfall.
The creek snakes about 25 miles from its headwaters in northern Butler County through Butler, Renfrew and Connoquenessing to Harmony and Zelienople. Along the way, troublesome tributaries like Sullivan Run, Thorn Creek, Breakneck Creek and the Little Connoquenessing drain into the Connoquenessing, making it prone to flooding.
Some storms are worse than others. The remnants of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 caused such severe flooding that Jackson Township removed homes from Porter Cove, a low-lying area on a bend of the creek that repeatedly flooded. Today, a grassy natural area remains.
A fierce storm on May 28, 2019, dropped 5 inches of rain on Zelienople, flooding the borough’s new pool just two weeks before its scheduled opening. The deluge shut down streets, set a few dumpsters and cars afloat, and left damaged homes and businesses in its wake.
Borough officials declared a state of emergency May 29, 2019. The storm also unleashed widespread flash flooding in other communities along Connoquenessing Creek, which reached its third-highest crest — just over 15 feet — in recorded history, according to the National Weather Service.
More recently, heavy rain during storms in June of this year have caused flash flooding in Butler and Butler Township.
Butler city engineer Joe Gray said the recent flash flooding has been concentrated in the lowest parts of the city, such as Elm Street, where he reported significant flooding with spillage onto Cunningham Street.
The 2019 flooding prompted frustrated Butler County commissioners to call a meeting of leaders from all 57 municipalities in the county. Commissioners urged communities to work together to better manage stormwater.
In Pennsylvania, stormwater and flood plain management are considered the responsibility of municipalities.
Ten municipalities in the southwestern corner of the county responded by forming the Southwest Butler County Stormwater Planning Group in late 2019. Adams, Cranberry, Forward, Jackson, Lancaster and Penn townships; along with Evans City, Harmony, Seven Fields and Zelienople, began meeting monthly. They commissioned a study of the watersheds they share.
The group also set out to educate itself.
Representatives invited legal experts and state and federal officials to their meetings to better understand flood plain management. Ultimately, the communities aligned their stormwater ordinances for consistency and established a 10% release rate for new developments, requiring stormwater to be released more slowly from retention ponds.
Heavy development in the county’s southwest corner has caused significantly more runoff, as acres of former farmland and forest — natural absorbers of stormwater — have been replaced by “impervious” surfaces like roads, roofs and parking lots.
When completed in 2021, the planning group’s study identified 22 improvement projects that would help mitigate future flooding. It also made it painfully clear that the projects were beyond the financial means of the municipalities.
“Many of these solutions were simply too cost-prohibitive — even for relatively wealthy municipalities like Cranberry Township or Adams Township — to take on alone,” said Mark Gordon, Butler County’s chief of economic development and planning.
Gordon helped organize the collaborative effort, which was embraced by county officials.
In 2021 and 2022, Butler County received $36.4 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding — a COVID-19 stimulus package passed by Congress.
The county directed $5.7 million of that funding toward the $9.7 million cost of the 22 stormwater management projects identified by the Southwest Butler County Stormwater Planning Group. The municipalities were required to match at least 20% of the total cost.
Jerry Andree, a former Cranberry Township manager who came out of retirement to help facilitate the planning group, estimates that 50 to 60% of the projects have been completed.
Mother Nature tested one of those projects in February. Dodds Road in Penn Township runs along Thorn Creek, a tributary of the Connoquenessing Creek. During heavy storms, the creek historically submerged part of the road.
In summer 2024, construction crews raised the road above the flood plain and moved it farther from the stream. On Feb. 16, 2025, Dodds Road stayed dry after a weekend of rain and snow flooded Thorn Creek. The project earned a Road and Bridge Safety Improvement Award from the state.
Other projects identified in the study are in various stages of construction, design or permitting. The group’s efforts earned a 2023 Governor’s Award for Local Government Excellence.
Four of the municipalities in the Southwest Butler County Stormwater Planning Group realized federal funding wouldn’t be enough to update and maintain their aging stormwater systems.
Evans City, Harmony, Zelienople and Jackson Township — among the hardest-hit communities when the Connoquenessing and Breakneck creeks overflow — recognized that regional cooperation tends to receive priority for county, state and federal funding.
The four municipalities formally created the Southwest Butler Stormwater Authority, which launched earlier this year.
“So far they are essentially concentrating on the structure of the authority and the bylaws — the legal groundwork that allows them to operate within each municipality,” said Tom Thompson, the engineer for Zelienople and Harmony.
Like a sewer or water authority, the stormwater authority will fund system upgrades and management by charging residents and businesses a fee starting this summer, Thompson said.
While the authority was being formed, Zelienople completed some of the projects identified in the planning group’s study. Stormwater pipes were added along South Main Street, and a culvert was replaced where an unnamed stream had previously bottlenecked during storms.
A retention pond above the community pool — to help control flash flooding — is expected to break ground this summer once permitting is complete.
A collaborative project between Harmony and Jackson Township to update and augment the stormwater system hit a snag over right-of-way issues, which Thompson said were recently resolved.
While flooding can never be completely eliminated, officials are confident the improvements will make a difference. Rescue Plan-funded projects must be completed by the end of 2026.
“If the Connoquenessing experiences a severe storm, the areas that typically flood will still flood,” Thompson said. “But when it comes to microbursts and other storm events, it seems the impacts have been reduced. I expect that trend to continue as more projects are completed and new developments help hold back water. That will benefit everyone in those communities.”
While communities in the southwest corner of the county were the only municipalities to formally collaborate, individual flood mitigation projects have been completed — and are ongoing — elsewhere.
Gordon said the City of Butler used a $470,000 loan from the Butler County Infrastructure Bank — a program established in 2017 to provide subsidized loans for infrastructure projects — to help complete a multimillion-dollar flood mitigation project along Sullivan Run.
Small culverts were replaced with larger box culverts, streambank obstructions were removed, sidewalks and bridge decks were raised, and the stream was straightened.
“If you think about it, we hear very little out of Sullivan Run today in the City of Butler,” Gordon said.
Following the recent flash flooding with the city, Gray said the funds received from the Butler Area Sewer Authority sale to Pennsylvania American Water in October will allow the city to be less picky about the projects it funds.
Mayor Bob Dandoy said the city is considering further drainage improvements near Sullivan Run, Ritts Park and the bottom of the Jefferson Street hill.
Gordon also has worked with several municipalities in northern Butler County. In Clay Township, an ongoing project to reduce the number of beaver dams along Beaver Dam Road has lowered the water table by about 3 feet, Gordon said.
Both Gordon and Jerry Andree are now working with municipalities in the southeast corner of the county to encourage collaboration between Saxonburg and Clinton, Buffalo, Winfield and Jefferson townships. They hope the success of the Southwest Butler County Stormwater Planning Group will inspire a similar initiative.
“We’re just stepping along slowly and talking about planning,” Andree said. “We have a meeting next month to talk about what was successful in our corner of the county and how they can duplicate it. So it’s just planting the seed and hopefully watching it grow.”
The Southwest Butler County Stormwater Planning Group’s success has led to collaboration on other fronts.
The eight communities still participating are studying ways to resolve a statewide crisis in emergency medical services, which are facing critical funding and staffing shortages. Several municipalities are also working together to connect their networks of recreational trails. Both initiatives grew out of the stormwater collaboration.
“So I think that is truly a huge benefit of the collaboration between the communities,” Andree said. “They’re not going at it alone. They find common challenges, and when they put their heads together, they always come up with solutions.”
This article originally appeared in the May edition of Butler County Business Matters. Eagle staff writer Matthew Glover contributed to this report.
