Schwenksville Borough Debates Culvert Issue

The blockage of the Centennial Street culvert was a major concern at the Schwenksville Borough Council meeting on Thursday.

Concerns have been raised for months over what exactly can be done in order to clean out -- or replace -- the culvert if need be, yet, no solution has been determined due to the complexity of the issue that was originally presented to the council at the April 12, 2012 meeting by Roy Miller of 320 Centennial Street.

According to the council, since the culvert has been filling up with sediment for approximately a hundred years, what used to be a four-foot opening large enough for borough resident Ray Yeanish to walk though as a child, it has become almost entirely blocked.

During large rainstorms typical of this time of year, the blockage has resulted in the flooding of Centennial Street, particularly around the post office area.

“The issue is that we could clean out the front of the culvert, but when we start to get towards the rear all of that is also blocked. There doesn’t seem a way to get back in there to get all of the debris,” said Dave Leh, borough engineer.

Since the culvert is constructed from concrete, there is a major concern that, as the culvert is cleared, the concrete may give way, causing the street above it to collapse. Therefore the prospect of sending people in to clean it out “the old fashioned way, with shovels” as Borough member Lee Ann Miller originally proposed, would be incredibly dangerous.

However, if the culvert is not cleared, not only would flooding remain an issue, but it could potentially become destructive by impeding traffic, damaging homes, the post office, or causing the road to collapse anyway.

While placing a trash dam before the culvert would help to cut down on the amount of new sediment and debris being deposited into the opening, it will not fix the problem that currently exists.

The borough is currently researching whether or not anyone is qualified in the area to do culvert clean ups, what other states have done in these situations, and in finding an estimate for how much it would cost to clean the culvert or, if that is not possible, to rip up the roadway and insert a four-foot pipe as an alternative.