Sustainability plan could bring a 'greener' Oakmont

Oakmont could be going “green” in the next decade.

Borough council is expected to consider a sustainability plan that suggests ways to improve borough efficiency while reducing emissions and cutting costs to taxpayers.

This is the first sustainability plan to come before council, and it was developed by an intern who’s a graduate student from the University of Pittsburgh.

Simon Joseph, 24, is in the university’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and began his position as master of public administration graduate student intern with Oakmont in May.

“He came highly recommended, and I knew of his work,” said Phyllis Anderson, Oakmont’s assistant borough manager. “My mentors are his mentors. If he was just a grad student looking for a project, I wouldn’t have assigned him this. He was the perfect person for the position.”

Anderson is an alum of the graduate school Joseph is attending.

She said Joseph previously helped create the borough’s glass recycling plan, a permanent recycling station that has collected 80 tons of glass since its creation in March 2023. Joseph said Anderson reached out to him in the spring to see if he’d be interested in writing the plan.

“It was really nice,” he said. “It was very flattering. Prior to this, I was focusing on environmental studies and working in nonprofits. (Anderson) gave me my first experience in local government.”

Joseph spent all summer developing the plan. He began by collecting data from the borough and identifying its vulnerabilities. Data collecting included combing through energy bills to see which borough building was using the most energy, hearing residents speak with borough officials and getting out in the community to see issues firsthand.

Joseph said he found excessive heat, stormwater and wind storms to be the biggest issues Oakmont is facing, and the borough’s largest energy consumer is the wastewater treatment plant. In terms of fuel, the borough’s vehicle fleet uses the most, which costs the borough thousands of dollars each year.

Anderson and borough Manager Scot Fodi outlined the priorities of the borough, naming stormwater infrastructure, municipal energy efficiency, municipal resident transportation and solid waste recycling and materials management as issues to focus on.

Joseph then created a list of potential actions that could be taken in the next five to 10 years to reduce cost and emissions in these areas. He looked at other communities for some of the potential solutions. He cited Forest Hills as an example for how to transition the borough fleet from gas to electric or hybrid vehicles.

The plan emphasizes three main benefits: public health and well-being, cost saving and efficiency, and community resilience.

“Most of (the potential actions) include solar (power) on borough property, fleet electrification, increased stormwater (management), which we’re already working on, and resilient stormwater infrastructure,” Joseph said.

He said borough officials began working on almost all of the solutions before his study was conducted. Oakmont Council recently voted to enact the first phases of the Dark Hollow Woods restoration plan. The parks department uses an electric vehicle, borough officials added electric vehicle charging stations in the community and goats were brought in for foliage maintenance.

“Really, the purpose of this is just for the next five to 10 years to take a look at these actions, whichever are most feasible, whichever can be done and finish them,” Joseph said.

Anderson said the plan will be a living document that will be worked on as time goes on and new developments occur in the community.

“We can’t predict the future, and we don’t know what is going to happen,” Anderson said.

Council members will be voting on the plan at the next voting meeting at 7 p.m. Sept. 16.