Dear Residents:

This letter is in response to Susan Craig's letter of last week (06/10/2010) in which she described the effects of silt on our local watershed. There were some inconsistencies in her representation of the facts as they pertain to Legacy Fields project that we felt it was important to clarify. Please refer to our own letter published in the 06/10/2010 issue for additional information.

First, Susan's letter implies that QVRA has been negligent in its stewardship of the Legacy Fields site and the run-off that has impacted the Little Sewickley Creek. Further, it was suggested that we were not taking any corrective action until the Conservation District inspected our site. In fact we had taken numerous steps to address the run-off and have sought additional approvals from the authorities for measures to deal with new problems as they are uncovered by the deluge of rain. We have communicated more frequently with the authorities than they are used to from projects like ours. The reason we have is not only do they have the authority but they also have the expertise to provide counsel on unforeseen situations such as this. The authorities approved our plans before we began work but no one could reasonably expect rainfall of such proportions that we have received in the past 45 days.

Second, the storm water retention ponds have yet to be completed and therefore should not be expected to be fully functional at this stage. They are capturing a great deal of silt as originally designed but because they have yet to be completed orange-colored water is still escaping and with that some silt. Susan states the ponds are not working. The reason is they are not yet complete. If we can just get a few weeks of dry weather, our systems will then be fully functional.

Third, when Camp Meeting Road floods at the hairpin turn, the road is frequently reduced to one lane for the safety of the drivers. Before QVRA assumed stewardship of the property, this area of the road would often flood during hard rains. Once this phase of our project is complete, this will no longer occur.

Please understand that QVRA joins the entire community in its support of preserving our watershed. The silt run-off that is impacting the rivers around all of western Pennsylvania in the face of the massive rainfall over the past 45 days concerns us greatly. The Legacy Fields project has unfortunately played a role in contributing to this run-off in the Little Sewickley Creek but as we pointed out in our letter of 6/10/10 there have been certain challenges that needed to be overcome before the storm water management system could be made fully functional. Once this is complete in the next month, the run-off from the site will be behind us and we will have finally completed the critical first step in building long overdue field space for generations of children from our community.

Sincerely,

QVRA Board of Directors