Boardman Township, in conjunction with the ABC Water and Sewer District, has received approval of federal grant funding to undertake a $47.248 million storm water project that is designed to alleviate flooding issues that have plagued the township for some eight decades.
      The grant will be one of the largest ever awarded to a community in the Northeast Ohio region, and one of the largest grants for such work in the state of Ohio.
      The flooding issues began In Boardman Township in the late 1940s, as the township began to change from a farming community to a site for residential and commercial development in Mahoning County.
      During that period, inadequate local development regulations led to inadequate stormwater management, as homes and retail sites were constructed in some areas where floodplain, or riparian areas should have been preserved.
      For example, the Cranberry Run Watershed, that slices through the middle of Boardman Township, outgrew the functionality of streams that were piped, or channelized, some as early as the 1930s, using Works Project Administration-style sandstone blocks.
      Residential, retail and commercial development continued upstream of the watershed area, further exacerbating the functionality of those streams.
      As a study completed by the locally-owned CT Consultants determined, “Upstream developments weren’t just homes, but seas of asphalt and commercial areas with no water detention.”
      Adding to the surface water issues in Boardman was a major roadway artery, Route 224, that was paved and widened in the 1960s, with no detention systems designed that could have provided some mitigation to the increased water run-off, particularly during large storms.
      “This lack of historical, adequate stormwater planning and management implementation is a major cause of flooding,” CT Consultants said, adding that “Over the last few decades, Boardman Township Trustees have begun implementing storm water management projects, and helped to form a stormwater district to help deal with these issues,”
      “Undersized and enclosed water conveyance areas are a factor contributing to flooding,” the consulting firm determined.
      Stormwater issues worsened over time and between 2018 and 2022, three, severe storms struck the township, dumping more than 12-inches of rain that available systems could not handle, causing flooding problems in hundreds of homes and many businesses, including along Rt. 224 and the Boardman Plaza.
      After a 1000-year storm in 2022 dumped more than four inches of rain in a three-hour period, Boardman was declared a disaster area and the federal government established a Help Center at the Boardman Government Center to provide relief to those impacted by the storm. Property damage was estimated to be more than $4 million from that 2022 event.
      In addition to grant funding received to reduce surface water issues in the Cranberry Run watershed area (particularly in the area of Market St. near Shields Rd.), the ABC Water and Sewer District has aided in the construction of a large detention system along Wildwood Dr., between Glenwood Ave. and Market St.; and increased water-holding capacities at Boardman Lake (near Glendale and Brookfield Aves.).
      Boardman Township is expected to alleviate many surface water issues with the Federal Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grant.
      The Township’s plan is to construct a culvert large enough to re-route storm runoff around
      neighborhoods that suffer recurring flooding.
      The culvert (along Glenwood Ave.) will bypass a large section of culverted stream which is
      currently not adequately sized. The new culvert will discharge into a section of open stream that is downstream of the those impacted neighborhoods.
      Once the Glenwood culvert is installed, the existing culvert along Rockdale Ave. will be replaced with a larger diameter culvert.
      Also, two nature-based improvements will be installed at the Boardman Plaza. 1) A section of the asphalt parking lot in front of the main plaza will be removed and a bio-swale installed that will slow down run off to and from the plaza; and 2) Another section of parking lot behind the western section of Boardman Plaza will be acquired and green space created to reduce stormwater runoff.
      Finally, two apartment buildings behind the Boardman Plaza will be acquired and the tenants relocated. Those buildings will be demolished, and a new detention basin will be installed.
      The mitigation activity (construction) will be implemented using industry standard construction specifications and methods to reduce flooding.
      The new culvert will re-route approximately 99 acres of upstream drainage area around neighborhoods that have suffered from perpetual flooding.