Environmental planning key to successful new Pennsylvania highway

Client

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation

Location

Northumberland, Snyder, and Union Counties, PA

Challenge

People who lived, worked, and shopped in North Central Pennsylvania were often stuck in traffic alongside truckers passing through. To reduce congestion and improve safety, PennDOT proposed a bypass of this congested area, a 12- to 13-mile four-lane highway on a new location, called the Central Susquehanna Valley Transportation (CSVT) project. This highway also included a new bridge over the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.

Our Harrisburg team was chosen as the prime consultant on the project, leading environmental planning and compliance and managing a team of engineers and environmental practitioners. This 20+ year process required a vast array of services including: a project needs study, a preliminary alternatives analysis, an environmental study of the alternatives that met the project need culminating in the production of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a large public involvement program, and environmental compliance during final engineering design and construction. This environmental compliance consisted of securing wetland and waterway permits, wetland and stream mitigation, the design and construction of noise walls, comprehensive historical and archaeological investigations, threatened and endangered species studies, the development of special environmental provisions for construction, the tracking of environmental mitigation commitment measures as part of permit compliance, and more. The region had many environmental constraints, including wetlands, waterways, forests, farmlands, recreational areas, cultural features, and local resources, including developed areas and businesses.

Solution

When considering a new highway’s impact on the local environment and community, the goals, in order, are: avoid impact, minimize impact, and, if needed, mitigate impact. With these tenets in mind, for the CSVT project, our environmental specialists and engineers developed and analyzed more than 30 combinations of alternative routes for the highway, seeking and reacting to public feedback along the way. From these, nine were chosen to go forward, involving investigation of more than 400 wetlands and 200 potential historic properties, determination of the probability of impact to archeological features, impact analysis of more than 40 more farms, assessment of waste management concerns, an extensive noise analysis, and more.

Throughout the process, the Harrisburg office involved the local community. Four community outreach working groups were created, and five public meetings, attended by an average of 300 project area residents, were facilitated. Visualization techniques, such as 3- and 4-dimensional modeling and GIS technology, helped residents and business owners understand potential impacts on their properties.

Results

Through this intensive, decades-long effort, environmental clearance for the CSVT project was achieved, enabling the project to move to final design. The Northern section of the project advanced through final design and permitting approval. Construction was completed and the section opened to traffic in 2022. 

Construction for the Southern section began in 2022, and our professionals are monitoring environmental compliance, including stormwater management and potential impacts to bats, assuring PennDOT that all mitigation measures are successfully achieved.