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Wilkes-Barre planning to clean up creeks

The streams that flow through the city are filled with debris from storms in September.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — With the sun shining, it's somewhat peaceful and pleasant on Solomon Creek in South Wilkes-Barre. But about six months ago, it was a very different story with raging waters from storms brought to our area from Hurricane Ida.

Now, city leaders are still working to clean up what that high-water event left behind.

"We put a plan together; the creeks that fall within the city of Wilkes-Barre will all be cleaned," said Mayor George Brown. "The debris that was accumulated during the September 1 Ida flooding. We're going to get in there. We're going to clean it out much better as far as flow of waters through the creeks."

The cleanup involves much more than just fishing out litter.

"Yes, you'll notice if you go down, if you're standing on a Franklin Street Bridge, you'll see sandbars built up alongside the creek walls. They really need to come out, and that's part of this debris removal," explained the city's director of operations, Butch Frati. "And they're identified in a couple different areas along the creek, which we'll clean from. We call it the Goose Island section of Wilkes-Barre—Hanover Township line down to Division Street. I guess on the creek was the one that we felt needed to be done first."

Logs and broken trees will have to be removed too. This project will start with Solomon Creek and continue through to the other four creeks that run through the city.

It's all part of a $2.5 million disaster recovery relief project for the city, funded through FEMA and PEMA.

"Also, we're going to be repairing some of the creek walls that had some minor damage during that high-water situation. So we're going to start with Solomon Creek. Could be as early as this week," added Brown.

For the other creeks, the city will have to get engineers involved and place projects out to bid.

"On Solomon Creek, if you go down, you'll see there's two access ways into the creek. So that helps. And we have one up on Laurel Run Creek, but the other creeks, you have to actually lower equipment into the creek and then remove it from the creek. It's really it's a difficult challenge," explained Frati.

The city hopes to have the cleanup completed well before the next storm season.

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