CRANBERRY TWP — Township officials Thursday joined the growing list of municipalities adopting and recommending county adoption of a stormwater report aimed at reducing the tide of flooding in the southern tier of Butler County.

The report, compiled by engineering firm Herbert, Rowland & Grubic after authorization last year by the county and 10 municipalities, recommends a litany of actions that could be taken to reduce the possibility of stormwater-related flooding.

HRG's report recommends both release rates for the municipalities and the county to adopt, which alter the amount of water permitted to leave a property, as well as an average of two projects each municipality and the county could undertake to reduce the risk of flooding.

While Cranberry doesn't suffer from flooding of the Connoquenessing watershed as much as nearby areas, such as Harmony or Zelienople, the township recognizes water doesn't respect political boundaries.

“It really is about the power of collaboration, of multi-municipal efforts,” township manager Dan Santoro said. “While some project in Cranberry or Jackson may not be the highest priority, we're willing to support the high-priority projects.”

Decades ago, according to township waterworks coordinator Tim Schutzman, Cranberry adopted more restrictive release rates than are proposed by the HRG report. In some areas, those restrictions drop all the way to 50%, meaning developers have to ensure the property holds twice as much water as it did before development.The proposed release rate in the HRG report is less restrictive, and if implemented would require a 90% release rate in new developments — in other words, developers would have to calculate how much water the undeveloped site puts into the groundwater, and have a system by which the site, after development, pumps less water out.“It just requires them to hold back an additional 10% of that water,” Schutzman said. “It makes the ponds a little bit bigger. Just a little bit more water's being held back.“But if you think of the extent of this watershed, if everybody holds back 10%, at the end of the day, where that water goes, through Harmony, through Zelienople, that's impactful.”There are some areas in Cranberry where the township has not implemented release rate requirements. Because of Cranberry's adoption of the plan, and its recommendation the county commissioners do the same, that will change.“Cranberry's agreeing, in the areas where we don't have release rates now, to, when a developer comes in, allow only 90% of the release,” Santoro said. “This is how all the municipalities are agreeing to reduce the amount of water that goes downstream to those flooding areas.”

In some municipalities, projects recommended by HRG are estimated to cost up to $4 million. That isn't the case in Cranberry, where the most expensive estimate is $150,000 to $450,000.The township similarly doesn't have any projects on the list of priorities as identified by the engineering firm — those are limited to efforts from the county, Jackson Township, Evans City, Harmony and Zelienople.But that's fine by Cranberry. To the township, the point of the project wasn't to benefit only its residents.“The idea there is to identify the high-priority, critical projects, and then to work as a group to go out and get funding for those,” Santoro said. “The impression is that 10 municipalities will have more success as a multi-municipal effort than we would individually.”Cranberry's recommended projects include adding stormwater detention facilities within the Fox Run neighborhood at an estimated cost of $30,000 to $200,000; culvert improvements under Pinehurst Drive at an estimated cost of $150,000 to $450,000; and modifications to the detention basin in St. Leonards Woods at an estimated cost of $15,000 to $90,000.They're important projects, Schutzman said, but the township will likely hold off for a while to address them for two reasons. First, the purpose of the HRG report and the 11-political body collaboration was to address the highest-priority projects first. Second, Cranberry is already committed to a number of other water-related projects, particularly as the township crosses the Brush Creek and Beaver River watersheds in addition to the Connoquenessing.“The township is focused on, and is required to do with our stormwater permit with (the state Department of Environmental Protection), stream restoration projects in the other watersheds,” he said. “These projects are definitely on our radar — there is potential for improvement with these projects here — but I think our main focus at this time is going to be with the stream restoration projects.”Still, Schutzman added, Cranberry is happy to participate, both with the formulation of the projects and in trying to acquire funding for them.“I think the ultimate goal was, how do we help the neighbors that have been impacted by these storms?” he said. “That's why, I think, priority-wise, everyone realizes the issues we have are not to the level that the neighbors lower than us in the watershed have.”