Allegheny County Conservation District | Inner Page Radio Show

The Inner Page is a program that provides information about local service providers and community events. In this episode, the hosts interview Heather Manzo, Executive Director of the Allegheny County Conservation District, and Matt Gordon, Regulatory Team Director. They discuss the district's role in enforcing erosion control and dam safety regulations for construction projects in Allegheny County. The district works to ensure that stormwater runoff is managed and clean to protect the environment and prevent pollution. They also touch on the history of conservation districts and the importance of preserving natural resources. The hosts emphasize the need for proper regulation and coordination to ensure the safety and sustainability of communities. Contact information for the Allegheny County Conservation District is provided for anyone needing assistance or information. This is The Inner Page, a program designed to bring you the information you once found on the inner pages of your daily newspapers. We will have conversations with the local service providers, business owners, elected officials, community leaders, and our neighbors who will share information about the events and needed services they provide to our communities that make our lives better each day. This is another edition of The Inner Page. I am your host, Alan Wagner. Joining me today is my co-host, Susan Blake, and I will ask my co-host to introduce our very, very special guest, some people that I don't think our listeners know anything about. Susan, it's all yours. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And he's probably right, and we're going to make sure that you, by the time we're done, you are going to know who these people are and what they do and how, if you need their services, how to get in touch with them. But first off, we're going to ask them to introduce themselves and tell us about themselves. We have Heather Manzo, who is the Executive Director of Allegheny County Conservation District, and we have Matt Gordon, the Regulatory Team Director. Hello, and welcome, and thank you for being with us today. So we'd like you to each take a turn, give us some background of who you are, what you do, and what the ACCD, which is the Allegheny County Conservation District, what you do. Hey, thank you so much for having us. It's good to be here. This is personally my first radio experience, so it's good to be in the studio. Al and Susan, thanks so much for having us here today. I am Matt Gordon with the Allegheny County Conservation District. I'm the Regulatory Team Director for the Conservation District. What that specifically means, my day-to-day duties, myself, my team, we have a delegation agreement with the State Department of Environmental Protection to run some statewide regulatory programs in Allegheny County for Chapter 102 erosion control, Chapter 105 dam safety and waterway management. Erosion control regulations require people conducting earth disturbance, roads, commercial residential development to develop practices to control erosion during construction and then manage their stormwater runoff after construction. The Chapter 105 regulations regulate any obstructions, encroachment, things that are built in and around streams, utilities, docks, boat launching piers, that kind of thing. So we have a subset of development. We have a piece in the development picture in Allegheny County looking at environmental best practices for new developments coming online that disturb earth to make sure the water that runs off is clean and managed. You know, which is interesting, I think I'm, correct me if I'm wrong, you're talking about anything over one acre of development. Correct. That's correct, Al. And there's a specific permit, it's called the NPDES, and that's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for construction stormwater. So the state has a clean streams law that was amended with the passage of the Federal Clean Water Act. And part of that amendment to the state clean streams law was incorporating NPDES permitting. You know, one of the things as a project I've told the developers, before we put a shovel in the ground, if it's over an acre, there's a lot of permits we've got to get. And we've just had the Amazon facility, which is open now over in Eastland, and working on the NASER 180 acres for a couple of big developers coming in. And we're always available. We appreciate the early coordination. You know, we have coverage for the entire county. Right. We have inspectors, reviewers that cover, and you know, always happy to assist developers in navigating the regulatory path for a successful project. Wow, I've learned a whole bunch just in that. You never think about the behind the scenes stuff when you see all this construction and digging and dumping. You don't think of the people behind it knowing, or not knowing, I guess, most people would not know all the things that go along with it in the safety precautions, in the runoff and the silt, and the possibility of poisons and things like that. This is fascinating. I'm so glad you are here today. Okay, Heather, give us your, do you have something to say? No? Okay. Heather, you never know with him. He's, like I said, he wears many hats and has done a lot of different things. So this is, you know, this is stuff he knows about being a commissioner in North for Sills, and a very good one. And we're going to be sad to see him go, but hopefully he'll have other projects up his sleeve. Okay, Heather, you're next. Thank you so much, Susan, and Alan, and listeners for having us today. Matt gave a really great intro to a really important and specific part of our organization. And again, my name is Heather Manzo. I'm Executive Director at Allegheny County Conservation District, or ACCD for short. So if we back up a little bit, Matt mentioned the PA Clean Stream laws and the federal EPA Clean Water Act, and I'm sure all of us have heard of or read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. And so that is often thought of as sort of the birth of the modern environmental movement. But if we back up beyond that, how did the conservation districts come to be? It's kind of an interesting point is that it was in the 30s during the Dust Bowl, that the federal government realized that natural resources were essential to preserving land, to preserving human communities, to making sure national security was intact. And at that point, that drought in the 1930s was so severe, that the soil literally disintegrated. You know, soil is a bunch of different particles held together by chemical bonds. And we're not here for a chemistry lesson today, trust me. But whenever soil, you know, is absolutely in an extended drought situation, those chemical bonds break down, and it just blows away. And so that's a real problem, because we do need that soil to grow our food, to drive and have our roads on top of, to have our homes and businesses built, our bridges be secure so they don't fall down. And so there's a lot of, there's just a lot that connects back to the soil. And that's really where the conservation district came to be. So we do have a lot of state and federal partners in the natural resource world, including some USDA agencies. And we really like to remind people of that history, because we are facing so many challenges now with changing weather patterns, with big super storms, you know, big volume rain events. We don't freeze for long times. And so that freeze thaw that Matt was speaking about, it's mud season all year long now. And so when, you know, whenever the soil freezes and thaws, the soil particles find their way very quickly into our waterways, which causes pollution. So it's one of those full circle connections, both in the local ecosystem, but then also in the big picture of, you know, weather patterns and how we manage our land to make sure our human communities are safe and secure and resilient from flooding and landslides and things like that. Wow. I'll tell you what, this is really fascinating. It really and truly is. Good job, Alan. He said, you know, he had been working at getting you guys to come in. I'm so glad he was successful, because this is fascinating. Just the things you both have said, it triggers things in my brain, and I'm sure his, too. But the audience, I'm sure they're thinking, oh, my goodness, when my home was built, oh, my goodness, when I opened my business. I'm thinking right now of when my sister had a restaurant down on the Yawk, and it needed dredged because of all the soil. And nobody wanted to do it. They said for her to do, it'd be a million some dollars, all this stuff. But it was causing the river to rise and the restaurant and the surrounding homes and businesses to flood. And nobody would take any effort to, even if they all, a bunch of people got together and said, okay, you know, maybe the state would do so much or whoever, the municipality to get that river dredged. But that's what's making me think about the runoff, because they would open the dam up, I think it's actually south. They would open the dam, and it would flow, and it would bring all that dirt and silt when there was flooding, and it would bring all that with it, and it kept piling up and piling up. And then that was actually the last resort of the restaurant. It was one last big, huge flood after many, but the last one was the worst one. And now, from what I understand, there is a boat repair man there, but I hope he doesn't have some of the same problems, you know, that we experienced. But that's what, it triggers all these things in your mind, like you don't think about that kind of stuff. But what I want to do before we get to our next question, quickly give the audience, and audience, you know what I always tell you, get your pen and paper ready, to give us your contact information, because I'm sure there is plenty of people that may have questions, may have a problem, and not know who to turn. And maybe either you guys can be the ones to help them, or point them in the right direction. So I want to get that done, and then we'll do it again, so that, you know, if they don't have their pen and paper handy, they can do that. Thanks. Thanks, Susan. And that's a really great example of how the natural resources management can really determine whether or not, you know, a business, a community, a home, can continue to exist in a healthy way. So, but you also mentioned a regulatory patchwork. Is it federal? Is it state? Is it municipality? And so we have a piece of this puzzle, and we're more than happy to help people to other resources, in case we're not the exact solution, because it does take a village, in this case, to keep our communities going. And so we can be found, again, our name is Allegheny County Conservation District, and we are located in downtown Pittsburgh. Our geographic range that we cover is the county, so Allegheny County is our scale. And we are active online, so if you go to accdpa.org, that's our website, and you can submit a complaint if you see something strange going on. We have resource directories and guides there, as well as our phone number. A lot of explanations and educational material as well. We're very proud of our outreach and education program for the general public and for municipalities. And so we're also on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. So if you just do a Google search for, or whatever your preferred search is, for Allegheny County Conservation District, accdpa.org, you'll find all the various ways you can get in touch with us. What's interesting, Heather and Matt, Norfolk Sells is like the Golden Triangle of development right now. They had the Amazon facility put in, and at one time that was the old Eastland Shopping Center site. It was a dump site for slag, and a lot of acreage there, and it was covered by asphalt. An interesting thing is what Amazon has done is they've taken a lot of that asphalt out and put in grass. And grass is a permeable surface, so they don't need retention ponds. But the thing is, Allegheny County Conservation District was checking to make sure there was no excessive runoff going down to the Mon River. And I see that in all developments. And you've probably heard the horror stories where some areas have developed and then the Don Hill area has flooded because of all the asphalt, non-permeable surfaces. And that's one of the reasons regulations have come about. So let's talk about the development in Allegheny County, and what do you do for that? Either one. Sure, yeah. Thanks for the question, Alan. And what you described is very typical of developed areas. You know, for both of you and for the listeners at home, just a quick exercise. Imagine you're in undeveloped land. So let's say you're in a forest, and it starts to rain. You hear the pitter-patter of rain on the leaves. You're staying dry. The rain continues. You're still dry. A few drops come through. Then you say, it's raining, we've got to get the heck out of here. You go back to the car. But think about that experience in undeveloped land with the rain. First it's intercepted by the canopy. A lot of that water is staying vertical, attached to vegetation. When it does reach the ground, it's hitting native soils. It's soaking into the soils. The roots, animals further have pores in the soil, pathways that water soaks in. Compare that to a parking lot or a rooftop. As soon as that water hits that impervious surface, there's immediate runoff. And not only is there increased volume and rate of runoff from that developed surface, but oftentimes it carries different pollutants that simply were not there before. Think of spreading fertilizers, spreading pesticides in residential applications. Think of salt to make our spaces safe. You need to keep driving safe, but that does run off after storms. So stormwater management, modern stormwater management through our permits, what we're looking at are those cover types and those soils before and after development and minimizing, back to original condition, water quality, runoff, volume, and runoff rate from those developed spaces. And I'm going back to the old lifeguard in me. We've seen so many times in this area where people were into the mantra, turn around, don't drop. And what very few people, here's the lifeguard coming out of me, don't realize water depth at three feet, knee depth, moving at three miles an hour, that's a walking pace. If you get knocked down, you cannot sit back up. That's how powerful water is. A gallon of water weighs about 8.6 pounds, I believe. And I always laugh because I'm in the swimming pool business, lifeguard, that the backyard swimming pools, they put them above the house and they break eventually and they take out the back of the house. Because water, a little bit of water can do a lot of damage. And that's what you're avoiding in Allegheny County. Sure. Absolutely. And those controls, when you get that increased spike of runoff, modern systems, modern storm water management, it used to be, drain your development as quickly as possible, put it down into the valley. And that's what caused quick rises and spikes and rate of flow and localized flooding. The ponds today, they store that water, pond it to a depth, and have a controlled orifice to discharge at a controlled rate. And that way, even through those heavy influxes of storm water and runoff, it's being stored and released at a controlled rate to reduce downstream impacts. That's really interesting. And again, as of last week, I was working with a developer coming in with 143,000 square foot facility that I can't tell you what it is because I signed a non-disclosure. But on the site, there were three water retention ponds being planned. It's simple because they had 173 parking places, which would not be permeable surface. It's really interesting. And you're the lifeguards of our facility. I'm an old... I love the water. I love the rivers. I've shot the yacht when I was in high school. When you were allowed to do this, we could swim it eight miles down the river. You're not permitted to do that anymore. But in the ecology, I've been around lakes, Yellow Creek, if you're familiar with that up in Indianapia. I was there before it was filled. We had the first aquatic school from IUP on that lake. That's a lot of canoeing and sailing. And I mentioned that on the Naser property, there was a... We called it Naser Pond. And one of the... I taught canoeing in a swimming pool, but I had to go to open water to teach paddling. And they said, go to Naser Pond. I said, I can't do a pond. I've got to do real open water. Then as my career has changed, I was in development and I saw the pond on a map and I measured it. I said, that's a 60-foot breastwork dam. It was 60 feet deep. What it was, was the reservoir for the Pitcairn rail yards for the trains when they used steam. But back in the day, we didn't do ecology. I mentioned before, we had a school... I went to Park Terrace Junior High School and they tore that building down in two days and put it in the basement. And I warned anybody, if you're going to develop, I wouldn't put a shovel in the ground for a couple of reasons, because of what you might find. You know what they built buildings out of in those days, beside lead and asbestos. It's got to be remediated if you're going to open that ground up. Yeah. And... Excuse me. So a couple of things to kind of, you know, Alan's comments and Matt's really wonderful description of the rain falling in a forested area. That was a really good, beautiful narrative. Yes, it is. Like that painted a gorgeous picture. And then also to your point about soils, another reason controlling soil and water movement and trying to keep the soil in place is because where we live, Alan, to your point about do you want to test that soil? We take the approach of, it's really good to know what's in that soil, because the water does move the soil particles into a drinking water supply, into all of our streams. And we do have legacy sediment issues here, for sure, because of our industrial past. So whenever we're doing, like we have a soil testing program, for example, we do a lot of work with the agricultural sector. We love working with farmers in the urban environment, as well as your more traditional larger farms in the county. And all of those places have to know what's going on in the soil, because the soil is like an ocean. You take a teaspoon of soil, and there's over a billion different living organisms just in a teaspoon of soil. So imagine what is beneath our feet, our cars, our homes every day is like the ocean. And so that's positive in the fact of how, you know, leaves decompose and soils regenerate and all of those natural processes, but it's also really important in terms of issues like heavy metal. So the conservation district also has programs that help folks understand what's in their soil, especially if they want to do a community garden project, or say a church wants to grow food to help put into a food pantry, they may have for a basic needs service. We love to help for free, you know, community gardens and places like that understand what's in their soil. We have a small soil and waters lab. And if you pay attention to our website, that's accdpa.org, we often times throughout the year will offer for free drop off of soil samples, so folks can understand if there is heavy metal contamination in their soil. Yeah, and we also really like to write a lot of public grants and work with municipalities to improve green spaces to restore riparian wetland areas, stream banks. And the reason we do that is just as Matt described what the detention pond does in a construction environment, holding that water, controlling and managing the release of that water. That is what undisturbed and undeveloped land does naturally. So our permanent sections are simply an engineered construct of what exists naturally. So conservation districts also put a lot of effort and time and money into implementation projects to restore and preserve natural ecosystem land as well. So we'd like to work on both sides of the equation. You know, I think the Allegheny County Conservation District has made an impact on developers too, because one of the questions that was asked in developing part of the NASA property, because it was a farm, was it an apple orchard? They know exactly what I'm going to say. Because when an apple biodegrades in the ground, it leaves arsenic. And I didn't know that. Actually, during this meeting, when they asked that question, the conversation went on and I said, I want to know why he asked that question. I caught the gentleman afterwards, I asked him and he told me because apples, apple orchard has a tendency to produce arsenic in the ground. She's laughing. Because of my face. I'm like, I'm stunned. I did not know that. I'm still a professor. You are still a professor and a good one at that. That is amazing. Who would have thunk? I mean, who knew that? Well, him and you guys. What about you, Michael? Did you know that? That's fascinating. It's frightening to know that arsenic might be in the ground somewhere, but wow, okay. I want to ask you guys, you're talking about development impacting water quality. To take the next step, what do you look for in an application from somebody that might be doing something like that? Or like you said about the farm people and different things like that, but take us to what you look for in an application for, say, a business. So specifically in the construction stormwater, the NPDES permitting, we've touched on a few times. And again, we intersect development, land use, water quality in a lot of different ways. But specifically for land development and permitting, first and foremost, we want early coordination. Heather's put our website, you know, put it out there several times, accdpa.org. Developers, contractors, the door is always open, and for their engineering consultants too. So key to a good application is early coordination. We like to hold pre-application meetings early on, understand the general scope of the project, understand what types of soils are there. We've talked several times about legacy issues, and those are common issues to deal with in areas that have been inhabited for a long time. Specifically in Allegheny County, so past development, all of the industrial development down the rivers, some type of legacy soil pollution from the steel or coal industry is common. There are old mines throughout Allegheny County and Pennsylvania in general. So those are things we want to know and understand early. Any landslide-prone soils, that's something to mitigate. That's a soil geological hazard, natural one that, you know, has the potential to cause pollution or a safety issue during construction. So early on, we want to have a pre-application meeting. We want to understand the site. Where does the water go? Are there any special protection watersheds? There actually are some nearby, Jacks Run and Long Run are both special protection. So those waters, they're waters that meet certain chemical, biological conditions, that are high-quality enough to require more special controls. And then generally, once we have an understanding of the site, we're looking at the pre- and post-land development, the covers, the soil types, what's the runoff before and what's the runoff afterwards. So during construction, we're looking at controls, best management practices, BMPs is a common acronym in our industry. And what those do are filter, settle out sediments during rainfall, so during construction, sediments not leaving the site. And after construction, looking at before and after condition, what size ponds, what size rain gardens, fire retention, there are a lot of options to clean, cool, filter that water before a controlled release. So the application form describes the acreage, location, et cetera, and then we see an erosion and sediment control plan, and the second part is a post-construction stormwater management plan for that site. That's interesting. Every time, my office at the Township Buildings with the Recreation Director, and every time we looked at a retention pond, is that going to have water, can we put fish in it? Yeah, specifically that does come up. These are engineered structures, they're designed to take the peak off that storm, during a heavy runoff, store it, release it at a controlled rate, and also treat some of the volume, so either transpiring it with plants that are in the pond, infiltrating it into the ground, so doing some water quality and volume treatment as well. One of the things I think we're all going to have to look at is walls, and what I noticed, my dad and I had a lawn care company, so we'll never build walls, and he was right, because I have a couple of walls in my house. This is the first year that they've started to move because of the freeze-thaw cycle. We've had such a large freeze-thaw cycle, I've had to replace some blocks in them. That's interesting. Okay. Wow. Like I said, this is fascinating. I am learning so much today, and I love to learn new things, and this is basically new stuff for me. You just don't think of this stuff unless you need to, and that's why anybody out there that is in need of these services, please write down the ACCD, what is it, PA.org. Okay, great. One of the things I wanted to ask you, what are some of the trends in development? Are you seeing in the county, and then what we'll do is go to the Mon Valley. In both instances, what kind of trends are you guys seeing? Thanks for the question, Susan, and really for the local context examples of these, Alan, it's really interesting as well, and I'm learning a whole lot too. Again, we like to look at development in a couple of ways and trends in a couple of ways. What are the big land use patterns in the county? In general, what's happening in the region? We know that municipalities depend on development to increase their tax base. And so that can, so every municipality handles that very differently in terms of planning. And so it's possible to look at a comprehensive plan where developable land as well as green spaces can both be analyzed to understand the various tax bases that can be brought in. So of course you have the development, but there's also recreational tourism. And we're really lucky in Allegheny County that we've got waterway trails, bike trails that are significant. We have wonderful county park systems. And so within all of those green spaces as well, there's economic value and activity because people purchase sporting goods, they travel, they eat out, they buy goods and services when they're participating in these activities. It supports local businesses, maybe adventure companies, outfitters, things like that. So it's nice to look at a comprehensive plan. So what we're seeing around the county is that there is an increasing look at the quantity of municipalities who are doing that multivariate analysis past just, you know, what land can be developed, but including these other factors that really look at the long-term livability of a place. So that's always really great to work, to help folks understand the planning. So Allegheny County Conservation District also has a streamlined watershed planning tool and a couple of data sets that are going to be released in January. This is a sneak peek, this isn't live yet. But on our website and in the Western Pennsylvania Data Center, we're going to have all of our permit data, green infrastructure mapping, and other geospatial analysis data available for download. So whether you're a hobbyist that just wants to look and see what is happening around the county, where are the hotspots for development, where are the big green spaces, where are their preserved farms? Preserved farms have conservation easements on them, so a housing development can never go up or a strip mall can never be put into place. So we have all of this information and more, and we're building on a new part of our website, so come back in January and you'll be able to find all of that information in a really user-friendly map-based visual system. So we're really excited to launch that. So we do work with those trends. We're a technical service provider to municipalities, so we help talk through those issues. As far as development, you know, we stick to the rules that the state gives in the Chapter 102 and 105 programs, but we can also do outreach and education. And Matt and his team and our partner conservation districts in neighboring counties really do a great job in the winter months, starting in February, of having an erosion and sediment control workshop. This was a big two-day conference before COVID, and now we do it online in sort of a lunch and learn series over time. So if people are interested in these topics, you can pick and choose from all of the speaker lineups what to participate in. So developers will be really interested in the technical updates from the state, so they can tune in and select those. But we have some folks who may be interested in model ordinances to adopt for a municipality around urban ag or stormwater, something like that. So they can come in here and speak or relate it to that. We also welcome the general public. I mean, it's an online experience now, and so it's available to anybody, and that will be advertised through our listserv, but also on our website as well soon. So as far as development trends, too, we want to give a nod to the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act that the Biden administration signed off on. This has put a ton of money, almost a once-in-a-generation amount of money, into the natural resources and infrastructure sector. And so the way that's impacting development patterns is that there's a lot of money to put in for repairing old water lines, sewage lines, but also increasing tree canopy. And so Allegheny County ACCD, led by Tree Pittsburgh, is part of something called a Tree Canopy Alliance. And so another development trend is these organizations working together to increase the tree canopy in Allegheny County. The group received an $8 million grant from the Forest Service through the Inflation Reduction Act to be able to help in that way. So we like to look at development both in terms of construction and buildings, but we also look at developing the green spaces and the natural ecosystems for resiliency, because one is, you know, naturally, if you will, engineered to handle stormwater well, and the other one is engineered by humans to handle stormwater well. And so the ideal situation is that both of those systems are functioning to help a community. That's interesting. I see computer life in my looking at these development. I think this is great, the learning about it and have the resource so we know. And I'm doing it. I'll still be doing development for Northwest Sails and our surrounding communities. I love McKee's work. I grew up in Green Valley, which was still part of Northwest Sails, but I went to McKee's for YMCA, and I hated to see that, and of course, the mills went. Yeah. You know, I was there when they, every one of my relatives worked in one of the mills. And now it's just a, but we do, all communities have to do development, but we need to do it in a correct and environmentally safe way. And every generation has its own development needs and pressures, and, you know, the economy changes and technology comes in, and so that's part of the challenge of natural resource management and community management, you know, as a county, or I'm sorry, as a commissioner and working in the public space. That is part, a huge part of what informs our work is what is happening now and balancing the needs of now with the needs of the future. So Pennsylvania's, oh gosh, in the Pennsylvania Constitution, there's a really beautiful piece of language that the framers inserted in there that encourages and instructs Pennsylvanians and public officials to steward natural resources for future generations. That's actually written into the Pennsylvania Constitution, and that's why we enjoy a regulatory environment that does help protect and to assist the preservation and, you know, sometimes the improvement of natural resources, because it's in our state constitution, so that gives us a place of strength to work from, because when that shows up there, then oftentimes it's enabling legislation and funding to actually get the work done and move past concept and theory and how it should be and wouldn't be nice to actually providing funding to do the work on the ground to make changes that help people in their day-to-day life. You know, interesting, as I thought, I was a health and phys ed teacher in public education in 1969 for the next 37 years. I've been retired about 10, 15 years now, but I don't remember ever talking about it in any class, including health class, environmental safety. We did not do it in those days, and I think we need to start doing that from elementary through the high school system. I totally agree. Things are changing so quickly. As you were talking, I was thinking about, like, all the rivers. You know, we're unique compared to most other areas in this country with all the rivers that are around and the water and, like I said before, about dredging and things like that, and all this stuff is just going on, I'm sure like his, too, going in my mind now because this is not something that we really even think about. You know, this is something people really need to pay attention, and if they are a developer, they need to get a hold of you. If they are landowners or if they want to build, all these different scenarios that they may not even have a clue that you're out there, so we'll talk about that, too, at some point. What do you see for the future development? I know things are changing, like with Amazon and all the electric car things and stuff like that. I'm still so old school. I thought I would be so hip and everything as I got older, as I was when I was younger. Now I'm seeing myself going, I don't know if I like some of this stuff, you know? So what do you see as far as development goes? And I loved your dissertation on the trees and the water and the leaves and the ground. That was beautiful. It really was. I would love more of that, actually. Well, thank you. I don't know if I have anything that poetic, again, to share, maybe set too high of a bar too early, but as Heather mentioned earlier, development, generations, needs, they do change over time. You mentioned our rivers in a previous, more extractive economy. Those were railways. There were a lot of steel mills down by the river. Currently right now, development near term, there are some very major infrastructure upgrades going on in Allegheny County for utilities and transportation. The Pittsburgh International Airport is going through a new terminal. That's a major new development. Our office and my section, you know, reviewed the permits under our agreement with the DEP. So they installed basins, underground detention to cool filter water from that project. The turnpike has had several major improvements in Allegheny County. On Interstate 76, east and west between Harmerville heading up towards Wexford, a lane was added in both directions. The southern beltway, 43 going out to Washington, was completed. And specifically in the Mon Valley, the Monfayette Expressway is going to connect 51 from down near Jefferson Hills heading northeast up to Monroeville. There's not great highway access there right now. In the short term, those are some bigger infrastructure upgrades planned for development. You know, it's interesting that you say that because I know that the Monfayette, the northern section is not funded yet, but we'll come through Norfolk Hills. And one of the interchanges will be at East Pittsburgh and Keysport Boulevard, a plant. And things, plans change, but certainly that's going to be a development. As far as our rivers, I'm sure you've heard this before, that we have more boat registrations per capita than Dade County, Florida. That's news to me. That's a great fact for trivia night. That is a great fact. And some people say it's a lies tale, but it's not. Look at our rivers and look at the advent of the kayaking. Both my daughters go kayaking all the time in the Yawk. And the Yawk is a great river, it's a great resource, and it's getting better and better. And because of Allegheny County Conservation, it's much cleaner, even though I water skied back in the day in all the rivers. But I look at the Clareton Works, a lot of people complain about the Clareton Works. But I remember as a child going through Clareton on the other side on River Road and seeing a hillside that was completely barren of foliage. Nothing could grow on the hillside. Go down there now and you will see it's completely full of trees and everything growing. So Clareton Works is working diligently to clean up their act, they are. And they provide a lot of job, even though there's maybe 8,000 to 10,000 workers there, they probably affect another 20,000 subcontractors too. So development's important to keep our area alive, but so is conservation and keeping green space. One of the projects I've looked at is the Rails to Trails trail, trying to find a way to get from the Quay Sport through Norfolk Sails down into the Turtle Creek Valley. And there may be a way to do it, I don't know, but I've talked to a lot of people to do it. That's one of the projects I intend to work on when I'm not doing crazy things as a commissioner. Well, all of the trail enthusiasts would absolutely appreciate your significant energy and attention to that, because again, those trails are really fun, and they are recreational tourism at its finest. They support the restaurants, the small businesses along the trail, and so they're really good for public health as well. It's just a good way to spend a beautiful day. A couple of my professors at the University of Pittsburgh that I was teaching there, they would literally, like Rich Fitzgerald did, take a bike ride from Allegheny County to Washington D.C. on the trails. I don't think people realize you can do that. Wow. Well, let's see what we're going to discuss now. How else does the ACCD deal with potential environmental impacts from development, good and bad? I mean, you know, we're talking about all the good stuff, and there is plenty. And it is, like I said, this is fascinating to me. But in development, we'll be honest, there is some, you know, problems at times. And I know, you know, I'll digress on that one because, you know, you're driving somewhere and you've got development and, you know, traffic's backed up and all these different things. But what, just give us some idea in the last few minutes. Well, a couple of specific ways we've tried to go a little bit above and beyond, think outside our state delegation, where we can add value. In September of 2022, we adjusted our fee schedule to encourage green infrastructure as stormwater controls. You can think of green infrastructure as using natural processes to manage your stormwater. So instead of tanks, underground, concrete facilities, using vegetation, ponds, soil to slow down and absorb that water. So we've been able in our delegated programs to make some changes to try to push, advocate for green infrastructure use. Heather mentioned already, we have a workshop annually in February, and that is to educate public but also direct stakeholders, people who interact with us, engineering consultants on the programs and best practices, what's cutting edge in the industry to manage and control stormwater. And we work closely. We're continuing to work closely with our local municipalities. We have a specific push for municipal outreach. We're holding a workshop in March and April of next year, specifically with municipalities on maintaining these systems once they're in the ground and live. What are best practices, cost effective practices to keep stormwater facilities maintained, functioning for long term? That is wonderful. Honestly, it really and truly is. Like I said, I'm just blown away by some of this information because it's not anything I knew about. You know, you just don't know until you know, and now this is totally something that people can really look into and see if your services are needed. We're going to give the website again, which is the accdpa.org. That's it. Please feel free to find us, call us, email us. We love to be an agency that has an open door and highly responsive. We also make grants to municipalities to help with natural resource management. So if you work for a municipality and you're out there listening to this today, check out our website because maybe some of our grant programs apply to you and we'd love to work with you. You'll be hearing from me. One of the things I say about the two developments we had, the GetGo in order for sales and the Amazon project, they took out a lot of surface and put grass in. Grass is a great way to mediate water retention. Grass eats a lot of water up. So they did that. That was great. Is there anything that we did not touch that you guys want to discuss real quick or mention? We have just a couple minutes left before we wrap up. Well, again, we just want to thank you for having us as guests today. Please check out our website, accdpa.org, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Do watch for the Tree Canopy Alliance, which has its own website. And so that will be working in just this 40 communities. And we kicked off last Thursday in Renzi Park in McKeesport. So again, look for tree plantings all over. This is a really exciting $8 million grant. It's going to create 39 jobs over three years. And we're just really excited. So you'll see us in action on construction sites. You'll see us in action planting trees. And we hope to see you maybe in some of our workshops and would love to connect with you. You're going to be seeing me, but I'm going to give you the assignment as a former educator. Start planning for the next appearance on this show, because I'm sure there's a lot of things you couldn't get on and see how fast it goes. But I'm certainly glad you guys came. This was the one I really wanted to be at because I understand your work. We deal all the time with things from Norfolk Sales and all the information that we have to have. So thank you again, Matt and Heather, for being here from Allegheny County. And I want to thank Amelie Grubbs for getting you to come here. Okay? Thank you so much, Susan and Alan. It's been a pleasure. And we just really appreciate all of the listeners' attention today, too. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you for joining us. Today's edition of the Interpage. Join us again next Monday at 9 a.m. Heard nationally on the Internet at bciradio.net. Click KHB620, then click Listen Live. Locally heard on 620KHB. Also on the Internet at bciradio.net. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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