Pennsylvania American Water will close to traffic part of Green Ridge Street in Scranton near Green Ridge Plaza during the next two weeks for work on a sewer/stormwater overflow tank under construction at the plaza, the company announced Thursday.
The tank will reduce pollution into the Lackawanna River by 8 million gallons a year, or a 90% decrease, from what’s called combined sewer overflows of wastewater and stormwater that occur during heavy rain.
The tank project will require road closure and detours:
• Both lanes of Green Ridge Street, between Albright Avenue and Ross Street, or between 120 and 220 Green Ridge Street, will close to traffic next week from Monday through Friday.
• Single-lane closures then will occur the following week, from April 14 through 18.
• The road closures will remain in place outside of project work hours.
The work is part of a $15 million infrastructure upgrade that includes the construction of a new 780,000-gallon storage tank under construction at Green Ridge Plaza, as well as new valves, manholes and flow meters.
The tank is part of the Scranton Wastewater System Long-Term Control Plan to reduce overflow events from the system that, when built many decades ago, combined wastewater and stormwater flows. The water company in late 2016 bought the Scranton Sewer Authority system serving Scranton and Dunmore and inherited federally mandated improvements to control and reduce the combined wastewater and stormwater flows from entering the Lackawanna River.
“The Long-Term Control Plan, which Pennsylvania American Water assumed as part of the acquisition, is designed to reduce the amount of overflows during rain events,” PAW Senior Project Engineer Matt Griffith said in the announcement of road closures. “With this new storage tank, combined wastewater discharge into the Lackawanna River from the surrounding area will be significantly reduced by over 90%, which is a reduction of over 8 million gallons of discharge into the river during a typical year.”
The tank project began in March 2024 and is part of a $189 million investment in the Scranton wastewater system to improve service and protect local waterways, the company said.