Rostraver Township approves plan for Webster boat ramp

Alterations are necessary due to the decreased water level in the Monongahela River.

On Monday night, the Rostraver Township board of commissioners approved an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a project on the Webster boat ramp along the Monongahela River.

The board unanimously authorized Rostraver Township Manager Jeffrey Keffer to sign the Rostraver Township boat ramp relocation agreement with the USACE. Keffer said that despite the “relocation” term in the agreement, the ramp located in Webster will remain at the same site.

“So when they removed the lock and dam at Elizabeth it changed the level of the Mon River, it lowered it, so we have to extend the boat ramp out and that’s going to be covered by the Army Corps of Engineers,” Keffer said.

According to Keffer, the plan to reconstruct the boat ramp has been in the works since the July 10 dam breach of the Monongahela River Locks and Dam 3 near Elizabeth.

After the breach, residents in the area complained that water levels in the Monongahela River had gone lower than promised. Local and state lawmakers reached out to the Army Corps of Engineers asking for a solution to the water level problem.

The breach was part of the Lower Monongahela Project that started in 1992. Since the beginning of the project, the USACE has helped communities along the Monongahela to adjust their riverside facilities.

The organization has provided aid to Monongahela, McKeesport, Glassport and Charleroi.

Rostraver crews do the work themselves, but the USACE will reimburse the township for all costs involved to extend the ramp.

“We will bid out the job, and we’ll have a contractor do the work, and then, once they do the work, we pay them, and then we submit it to the Army Corps, and they’ll reimburse us,” Keffer said. “They’ve already approved the project, and the only reason we’re doing the project is we have to — because they’re requiring it.

“They’ll repair anything that needs repaired, but it just needs to be further out into the river so the boats can get in and out.”

Keffer said they hope to get bids for the project by early summer and have it done by fall. The board wasn’t able to estimate how much the project might cost.

Also Monday, the board approved Robert E. Stanger Jr. as a member of the Rostraver Township vacancy board with a term that will expire at the end of the year.