Contact:
Chriss Swaney
412-268-5776

For immediate release:
December 16, 2002

Carnegie Mellon Students Unveil New Template To Map Sanitary Systems in Oakmont Borough

WHAT: Carnegie Mellon University civil engineering students have teamed up with Gateway Engineers Inc. to create a template for assessing sanitary systems in Oakmont Borough. They will present their new template and sanitary systems research at an Oakmont Borough council meeting this evening. The student research is based on work done by Pittsburgh-based Gateway Engineers Inc.

The class project, developed by Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Mitch Small, focused on mapping existing water collection systems and identifying existing storm runoff features throughout a 200-acre tract in Oakmont Borough, a community of about 6,000 residents located along the Allegheny River. "In 2001, Gateway Engineers created new digitized maps of Oakmont's storm and sanitary sewers, and Carnegie Mellon students were given the task of updating our initial work," said Andrew Blenko of Gateway Engineers Inc., an 80-person company specializing in municipal engineering and land development work.

Carnegie Mellon's Brian Belowich, Laura Coleman, Tylesha Drayton, Tushith Islam, Mighel Jackson and Victor Hsu worked weekends for the past several months to develop a sanitary systems assessment tool and a set of electronic maps of the Oakmont sewerage system, which they want to share with other Allegheny County communities.

Under the state Department of Environmental Protection's Storm Water Management Act, all counties must have a storm water management plan.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Monday, Dec. 16, 2002

WHERE: Oakmont Borough Council Building, Fifth and Virginia Streets, Oakmont