Powell Road Shuts Down for a Week at Brush Creek

Motorists on Powell Road may want to avoid the area near Brush Creek this week.

On Monday, Cranberry began constructing a new sanitary sewer main line leading to the Brush Creek wastewater treatment plant.

The work requires closing a segment of Powell Road between the Brush Creek bridge crossing and the Turnpike bridge. Construction is expected to be complete in about a week.  

Drivers who normally using that span of roadway will be detoured south along Powell to Rochester Road, then east on Rochester to Graham School, Unionville, and Glen Eden roads.

The project’s construction crews will be cutting a deep trench in which they will place a 54-inch ductile iron pipe segment that will cross Powell Road 26 feet below the highway’s surface.

The work originally was scheduled to take place last week but was delayed because of late material deliveries, according to the township.

Lorin Meeder, Cranberry’s environmental programs coordinator, said the township originally considered boring a tunnel beneath the roadway, but that plan was rejected as being too costly—as well technically difficult to accomplish.

He said the additional pipe, which spans about 25,000 feet, is needed because the existing sanitary sewer main line, which was installed 40 years ago, is at capacity. Another main line also was needed to keep up with the township’s projected population growth, he said.

Meeder added the project has been in the works for more than five years. Before the township could proceed with construction, permits from the Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers were needed, he said.

For more information on the project, email Meeder at lorin.meeder@cranberrytownship.org.