Fifteen environmental justice communities in Allegheny County are now eligible to receive funding to help adapt to climate change through projects that will address flooding.
The Allegheny County Health Department received nearly $1 million from an EPA grant program targeting under-resourced communities burdened by pollution. Under the Biden administration, the EPA awarded the grant to Allegheny County as part of a nationwide program funded in part by the Inflation Reduction Act.
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Scientists say that climate change will make Pennsylvania weather a lot warmer and wetter, with “more frequent or extreme heavy rain events and associated flooding,” according to the state Department of Environmental Protection’s latest projection. The state predicts the number of days with “extremely heavy” precipitation will rise 36% by mid-century.
Stephen Strotmeyer, a chronic disease epidemiologist with the Allegheny County Health Department, which is administering the grant, said the three-year grant will also fund the development of municipal-level climate plans in 15 Mon Valley communities.
Students from the University of Pittsburgh’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation are currently working with Braddock, Homestead, Wilkinsburg and Wilmerding to design projects. Landforce will then implement them. Projects include the installation of a rainwater capture system in a flood-prone area of the borough of Wilkinsburg.
“They will be installing a green stormwater project to mitigate that flooding and to actually slow down and contain that water flow,” Strotmeyer said.
Other projects include debris cleanups in the communities of Wilmerding and North Braddock.
“We know that in some of the neighborhoods they’ve identified, they can have everything from tires to just illegal dump sites, and…it’s actually blocking drainage,” Strotmeyer said. “So by going in and really cleaning out that debris, you increase the ability for the water to flow.”
Projects could be completed as early as this summer.