Gambling funds seen as answer to runoff woes

Luzerne County officials have come up with a solution to redirect increased water runoff from the explosion of development around the Wyoming Valley Mall, but it will cost $9 million.

County officials say they can’t afford it, so they plan to encourage the impacted municipalities to band together and seek gambling money next year to fund the project.

Wilkes-Barre city and Plains and Wilkes-Barre townships would have to apply because the county isn’t permitted to seek the gambling revenue, county officials say.

Much of the runoff drains into Coal Brook Creek, which runs along Mundy Street. The drainage has caused past flooding in low-lying developments in Wilkes-Barre Township and Wilkes-Barre.

“There’s a whole host of problems in that watershed, and we think we see an opportunity through the gaming monies to resolve those,” county Flood Protection Authority Director Jim Brozena said during a meeting earlier this week.

A past proposal to pipe the drainage to the Susquehanna River was scrapped because it would cost $15 million, and no government or private entity was willing to foot the bill, county officials have said.

The county authority is not responsible for the Coal Brook Creek drainage problem but has agreed to work on a solution because it impacts multiple municipalities. Ideas have been tossed around for years.

The $9 million fix, developed by Borton Lawson, would scale back the original plans by using a series of parallel pipes to redirect the water, rather than a large pressure conduit, according to Brozena.

“We want to do it in bite-sized pieces rather than one large system,” he said.

Problems with water collection basins must also be fixed by some property owners and/or developers, Brozena told the authority.

For example, basins behind Michaels arts and crafts store and near the Wyoming Valley Sports Dome have both “failed,” Brozena said. These basins are supposed to hold and prevent water from flooding downstream structures.

Authority Chairman Stephen A. Urban said the walls of the basin by the Sports Dome have started to collapse, reducing its capacity.

The county also recently learned that the steel plug in the giant catch basin by the Target store has been vandalized -- again, Brozena said. The plug had been vandalized last year, possibly contributing to downstream flooding.

Brozena said the owners of the basin plan to solve the problem by encasing the plug in concrete.

Developers of the Jade Hills development must also address stormwater concerns, Brozena said, because runoff from the development appears to be impacting the Wilkeswood development.