With a sparsely attended Thursday night meeting in the rearview mirror, Jim Thorpe Borough turns its attention toward the first of what it hopes will be a series of stormwater drainage improvement projects.

Less than a dozen residents filled Memorial Hall for an informational session on how the stormwater projects will unfold and what part property owners will play in the process.

In conjunction with borough paving projects in the future, residents may be required to pay for installation or repair of curbs and sidewalks, and the removal of some trees, among other items, to help direct stormwater flow where it needs to go and not in the front yards or basements of local properties.

Jim Thorpe hopes to begin its new approach with a paving project on Front Street, stretching from Center to South Street, impacting five property owners.

“I think the way to attack this is to start at the bottom of the drainage area, which the borough will be with Front Street, and we can put in better discharge and direct better flow,” Daniel Wilusz of Barry Isett and Associates said Thursday. “We don’t want water and runoff ending up in a random yard.”

According to the most recent estimates, given in November, the entire project is slated to cost about $262,000.

Project details

One side of the street fronts Twining Park, which is entirely borough owned, meaning property owners on the other side will have an opportunity to join with the municipality to keep costs down.

If property owners join with the borough, the borough will cover most costs, including sidewalk installation, tree removal and design/application fees.

That would reduce the property owners’ cost down to an estimated $27 per linear foot for curbing, for a total contribution of between $1,485 and $3,375 per property owner.

If the property owner does not join with the borough, and chooses to have their own professionals or contractors do the work, curbing increases to an estimated $56 per linear foot, and they will also have to pay the costs for the sidewalk repair, design/application fees and tree removal.

That would increase the cost per property owner to between and $9,505 and $23,875.

Some of the residents who would have to kick in money for curbing said they would have less of a problem if the whole town was involved, but feel like “they’re being singled out.”

Solicitor James Nanovic said all of Jim Thorpe is chipping in because the borough is contributing $250,000 for the project, which is coming from taxpayer money.

More to come

Borough President Greg Strubinger also pointed out that the Front Street project is “only the start” and residents on other streets may be required to do similar curbing and sidewalk improvements in the future.

The borough planned to do the Front Street project over a two-year period, but public concern put a delay on things. Councilman Mike Yeastedt, chair of the public service committee, said he is hopeful the first part of the project, which would feature engineering, pipe replacement and the removal of trees, can get underway this year.

While the borough deems the removal of trees necessary to proceed with the project, Kevin Herman, a South Street resident, cautioned council on what the end product could look like.

“Go look at the back of Flagstaff now after they took all those trees out,” Herman said. “It looks terrible. That is what this is going to look like.”

The borough’s existing drainpipe sizes are sufficient to handle a 25-year storm flow, but a different type of pipe and larger inlets are needed.

Existing conveyance pipes under Front Street are terra cotta, or clay pipes.

“Terra cotta pipes were last typically installed in the early 1900s, so the pipes in question are quite old and past their usable life,” Wilusz said. “It’s our experience that terra cotta pipes are very brittle and will fracture if excavated or modified in any way.”

Wilusz recommended the borough replace them with new high-density polyethylene, or concrete pipe.

Current stormwater inlets will be replaced with larger, 2-by-4-foot inlets.

Two new inlets and around 200 feet of 15-inch pipe will help drain the historic low spot, which is 100 feet to the north of South Street.

Reduce pollution

All of the upcoming stormwater work, starting with Front Street, is being planned with possible future MS4 permitting requirements in mind. MS4, or the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, requires Jim Thorpe, and other municipalities, to cut down on pollution from existing sources and prevent future pollution.

“I think we should be looking into less costly measures of handling stormwater such as treating water in grass swales that will take pollutants out and leaves us less to treat down the line,” local developer Jake Arner told council. ”I think we should avoid curbing and funneling the water. Using curbs and inlets will make the MS4 permit that much more expensive.”

Wilusz said the borough could look to do swales in some parts of town, but not everywhere.

“Front Street is at the bottom with a higher velocity so we really don’t want to do that there,” he said. “When we get up to the top part of town, that is something we’d look at. Center Street, for example, is wider and there are some swales already there.”