Residents, PWSA disagree on Polish Hill landslide issues

By Ciara McEneany / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Residents in one Polish Hill neighborhood said they are angry after a broken water line caused a landslide, condemning one house and leaving questions about the stability of others.

Some neighbors are pointing a finger at the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, saying there have been problems for months before a landslide on Friday sent a portion of Brereton Street and up to six feet of debris crashing onto the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway below.

“I believe all of us [the neighborhood] are on the same page that this is entirely PWSA’s fault,” Kelly Bender, 38, who lives on Kenney Way, one street above the landslide, said. “There's been a lot of problems with the water and the repairs. It’s not great when we have water out for a day or a day and a half, but something like this is crazy.”

Rebecca Carrigan, who lives on the corner of Brereton and Haran streets, said the problems began when PWSA began addressing water line issues on the road over a year ago.

She said PWSA has been in the area doing work multiple times over the last year, but she called it a “Band Aid” solution.

Rebecca Zito, senior manager of public affairs at PWSA, rebutted those claims about the past work, telling the Post-Gazette on Tuesday that any past issues with the road need to be addressed by the city. But she said PWSA is still studying the cause of the landslide.

“We are engaged in a professional third-party assessment to understand the cause of the landslide, why this failure occurred, and whether it involved PWSA’s infrastructure,” Ms. Zito said in an email to the Post-Gazette. “The water main on Brereton Street, where the landslide occurred, was installed in the late 1970’s and has not been replaced. Comparatively, the average age of our water mains are approximately 65 to 70 years old.”

Ms. Zito said the agency is “working through a complex process to understand the cause of the landslide and next steps in remediation,” and that it will take time.

Landslides in southwestern Pennsylvania are rather common compared to the rest of the state.

According to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, “backyard landslides” are historically known to happen in the Pittsburgh region.

Most recently, in January, a landslide in Moon closed down part of Beaver Grade Road below the Sonoma Ridge development, putting several houses in the area at risk of sliding. Officials at the time said heavy rain moved the slide several feet per day.

Daniel Bain, a University of Pittsburgh associate professor and sustainability faculty fellow, said the region’s high risk for landslides is due to the area’s soil makeup and slope.

Living on a slope does not necessarily mean a property is automatically at risk for a landslide, but rather it depends on the type of soil, he said. Landslides are most commonly triggered by over-saturation of the soil, including water line breaks and heavy rains, along with areas with clay-based soils located on a slope.

According to the Allegheny County Landslide Portal, which shows areas most susceptible to landslides due to soil makeup and slope, the Brereton Street neighborhood is sitting upon Pennsylvania “Red Bed,” a layer of claystone rock that deteriorates when exposed to water and will cause all of the material above it to slide.

Ms. Carrigan said she saw the road cracking before the landslide.

“We thought this was going to happen,” she said.

While there are steps homeowners can take to try and prevent landslides — such as checking for cracks in the soil, trees moving, or more expensive measures like engineering — insurance is not likely to cover the damages caused by one, Mr. Bain said.

In the last five to 10 years, he said, there have been measures to change that.

State Rep. Valerie Gaydos (R-Allegheny), alongside Rep. Emily Kinkead (D-Allegheny), introduced a bill that would add insurance coverage for landslides and sinkholes under an existing program through the state's Department of Environmental Protection.

“It’s a terrible thing when it happens, but there's lots of avenues for prevention and mitigation from that full blown engineered approach to being really vigilant about keeping rain out and hoping there's not sort of a hurricane scale precipitation,” Mr. Bain said. “You can see things before they start, they move slow for a long time before they move fast.”

Last week’s landslide also caused the MLK Jr. East Busway to close, after nearly six feet of debris landed on it.

PRT officials on Tuesday said there are no updates on when the busway will reopen. Though PRT brought in a geotechnical firm, which is monitoring the area and hillside where the landslide occurred, along with making plans to install concrete barriers on the busway’s shoulder in the event of another landslide.

Buses that use the East Busway from 26th Street to Neville Street will be detoured and unable to use Herron Station until further notice, PRT said in a post on X.

Detours, which will add about 15 to 20 minutes to each trip, will include inbound buses stopping at Liberty Avenue on 33rd Street and outbound buses stopping at Liberty and Herron avenues.

Though residents told the Post-Gazette that they have not heard from PWSA officials, a spokesperson said a letter will be sent to residents in the landslide area later this week.

“We understand the concerns that residents along Brereton Street have raised following Friday’s landslide and water main break,” Ms. Zito said in a statement. “Their safety remains our highest priority. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we work through the process as quickly and as safely as we possibly can.”