PennDOT is budgeting $20 million for landslide remediation in the coming year, District 11 executive Cheryl Moon-Sirianni told The Confluence Tuesday. The sum is more than three times more than their current line item allocation.
Moon-Sirianni says it's only a fraction of what the state department needs to repair existing damage from about 93 landslides throughout the district's three-county region, including Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence. She estimates those slides will take five years to address; any future damage would only exaccerbate the timeline.
“We are going to have to shift some other priorities just to attack those landslides that we’re working on,” she says. “It means that some of the roadway paving or maybe some of the bridge replacements that we wanted to do this year are going to have to be moved until next year or the year after.”
Later in the program:
Morning Edition host and rabid Pittsburgh sports fan David Greene loves the Pirates, but questions whether they have the endurance and experience to get through the season. He joins The Confluence to discuss his thoughts on spring training and his predictions for the upcoming baseball season.
Damon Young is the well-known co-founder and writer of the national blog, VerySmartBrothas, which takes a nuanced and provocative look at everything from popular culture to racism. 90.5 WESA’s Bill O’Driscoll talked to Young about his new book, “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker,” which Young calls a memoir in essays about being a black man in America.
And the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection set a goal to have 10 percent of in-state energy sales come from solar power by 2030. That would require a “full portfolio” of options, including grid-scale solar installations, says Anna Siefken, a researcher and executive director of the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University. This and a wide range of energy-related topics will be discussed through Thursday at CMU Energy Week 2019. Find more about the conference here.
90.5 WESA's Amy Sisk and Julia Zenkevich contributed to this program.
The Confluence, where the news comes together, is 90.5 WESA’s daily news program. Tune in weekdays at 9 a.m. to hear newsmakers and innovators take an in-depth look at stories important to the Pittsburgh region. Find more episodes of The Confluence here or wherever you get your podcasts.
