A Delicate Dance with Nature: The Turtle Creek Flood Control Project

In the face of nature’s relentless fury, humankind has long sought to erect bulwarks against the ravages of floodwaters, a testament to our indomitable spirit and ingenuity. One such endeavor, the Turtle Creek Flood Control Project, stands as a shining example of this ceaseless struggle, its very existence owing to a series of catastrophic inundations that laid bare the vulnerability of the Turtle Creek valley near East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The impetus for this ambitious undertaking can be traced back to the devastating flood of 1907, a harbinger of the St. Patrick’s Day deluge of 1936 and the watery onslaught of May 1946, which saw the unrelenting waters of the Monongahela River surge back into the Turtle Creek valley, submerging the communities of Turtle Creek and Wilmerding, and even threatening the hallowed grounds of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s East Pittsburgh Works.

In response to this litany of aquatic assaults, a formidable defense was erected – two mighty floodgates, one a towering 80-foot by 30-foot behemoth to dam the creek, and another, a 40-foot by 20-foot colossus to hold back the waters of Braddock Avenue. Constructed between July 1937 and January 1938 at a cost of $500,000, these engineering marvels stood ever vigilant, their imposing forms held aloft 20 feet above the Braddock Street level when not in use.

Complementing these stalwart guardians was a formidable pumping system, comprising three immense pumps, each driven by a 5,000 horsepower electric motor, their combined might capable of expelling a staggering 7,500 cubic feet of water per second – a torrent exceeding 3.3 million gallons per minute.

Yet, as the sands of time inexorably flowed, the maintenance of this vital bulwark against nature’s fury fell into neglect. The Turtle Creek Valley Flood Control Authority (TCVFCA), comprising the municipalities of East Pittsburgh, Turtle Creek, and Wilmerding, expended a mere $162,000 in the years 1967, 1969, and 1970, a paltry sum in the face of the estimated $56,000 required to maintain the project’s integrity.

By 1982, the Turtle Creek Watershed Association sought to modernize the system, upgrading the computer program that governed the Westinghouse floodgates and pumps, and automating processes that had previously required complex written manuals. However, the following year, a grim reality set in – the flood control projects along Turtle Creek had deteriorated to such an extent that $1.3 million in construction was needed to restore them to their original, as-built conditions.

The floodgate and pumps beneath the Westinghouse Bridge had fallen into disrepair, rendered useless by the inexorable accumulation of silt, while the debris basins had become choked with refuse, crying out for dredging. Alas, the TCVFCA found itself unable to raise the funds necessary to maintain the waterway’s integrity.

In the Turtle Creek Valley Strategic Action Plan for the years 2000-2010, the Turtle Creek Valley Council of Governments (TCVCOG) cast a critical eye upon the cost of operating the Westinghouse floodgate, concluding that its maintenance placed an unsustainable financial burden upon the host municipalities of East Pittsburgh, Turtle Creek, and Wilmerding. In light of this stark reality, the TCVCOG recommended that the Army Corps of Engineers undertake a reconnaissance study to determine whether the floodgate remained a necessity in the wake of the implementation and future operation of the new Lock and Dam No. 2 on the Monongahela River.