A recent proactive effort with the creation of a part-time recovery plan coordinator position plans to reduce the impact of future flooding in Schuylkill County.
William E. Reichert, president of Schuylkill Headwaters Association, recently accepted the new part-time position of manager of the Pine Grove Area/Upper Swatara Long-Term Recovery Strategy.
State Rep. Mike Tobash, R-125, helped coordinate the efforts of the Schuylkill Economic Development Corp., Schuylkill County Industrial Development Authority, Schuylkill County commissioners and the Schuylkill Conservation District, which created the position now responsible for managing projects that affect the entire Pine Grove/Upper Swatara watershed area.
The effort was based on an idea from a Federal Emergency Management Agency report.
"Basically, I'm taking the work that had been done by the folks when FEMA was here for Tropical Storm Lee to try to ensure that all of that effort and time and energy continues to move forward," Reichert said Tuesday. "You can spend a lot of time and effort to make a plan then put it on a bookshelf and nothing happens."
Reichert said a committee came together from all of the different townships and municipalities that came up with "a lot of good ideas," so he's going to see that something gets done post-FEMA.
"We have a project out in the Good Spring area near Donaldson called the Devil's Hole project, where we'd like to remove some old coal banks and restore the floodplain out there," Reichert said. "We have a grant application in and hopefully in the near future we will find out if that was successful or not."
There are also plans for floodplain restoration work in the Pine Grove area.
"We have about 10 or 12 other ideas that surfaced during the FEMA process that were put together by the Swatara Watershed committee," he said. "All of the different townships and municipalities came out and we did the ground tours, searches and brainstorming to figure out different things that might happen."
According to a press release from Tobash, SEDCO and SCIDA made a substantial financial commitment to fund the part-time position and each affected municipality is also being asked to make a financial commitment.
"We saw the damage that rising waters had on our area and we are still reminded of the costs that went into the cleanup and reconstruction within the district," said Tobash. "This idea to bring in someone who will work on a local level and essentially work to obtain funding, and manage what might be our most vulnerable area, will save each local municipality money and resources."
State Sen. David Argall, R-29, said in the press release that it is important to pull resources together to ensure communities are in the best possible hands when dealing with future natural disasters.
He also said he applauds the initiative and will work with the municipalities and the manager to help find programs and funding to support the Pine Grove/Upper Swatara Watershed plan.
"We definitely want to keep all of the emphasis and the work that the watershed committee has done moving forward and also continue to look for new opportunities to address the flooding issues," Reichert said.