A state lawmaker is keen on not just letting water in streams go where it wants to, which often results in property and structural damage to bridges and roadways, leading to expensive repairs or replacements.

“It has always been kind of a controversy between just letting the water go and not paying attention to it,” said state Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Loyalsock Township, of legislation that he supports to provide a means of maintaining streams.

“I kind of equate it to the same way as you treat roads,” Yaw told members of the Sun-Gazette editorial board Tuesday.

“You’d have to maintain them in order to keep them where they are,” he said, adding such maintenance items on roadways as repaving and remarking.

“I don’t think streams are any different,” he said. “You don’t just let them go.”

Presently, Yaw said he is working with a few legislative colleagues who agree and have introduced bills related to stream maintenance and cleaning out channels.

“I think one of the ideas that is a little bit different from anything that I heard in the past, that I think may actually pique people’s interest, relates to the idea of going to the design plans — or looking at where a bridge was designed and built,” Yaw said.

By looking at the plans, which will show the way a bridge was designed to accommodate the water flow at that point in time, real long-term solutions can happen, he explained.

“I think that there’s a permit out there now where you can go 50 feet upstream, and in some respects, that is not nearly enough,” Yaw said.

Instead, getting the design plans and seeing the picture of what a bridge should look like to preserve the stream’s integrity is the key.

Look at the way water in the stream flows at a different angle, he added, and how it comes behind the bridge abutment. Actually take a look at the design plans to prevent flooding and loss of structural integrity.

“It makes logical sense,” he said. “All we want to do is correct the streamflow to put it back the way that the bridge was originally designed.”

One means of accomplishing that would be to extend the permit time for the maintenance to be done.

“Maybe a 10-year permit that a township or borough or whoever may be involved with that particular structure could get in the stream and correct it for a certain distance,” he said.

In essence, “the municipality or whoever would be changing the stream back to the way that the bridge was designed to accommodate it,” he said.

“I think that is something that maybe for the first time we may be able to get some bipartisan or across the aisle support for and that’s kind of intriguing,” Yaw said.

It is a slightly different approach than what has been tried.

“We can say, ‘look, we need to clean the stream,'” he said.

With the bill, should it become law, there is more clarity and focus on why stream maintenance and cleaning is critical to maintaining bridge structures and preventing damage from flooding.

“We can say, ‘we need to do it because the bridge was not designed to accommodate water flowing the way it is,'” Yaw said.

If not, the waterways — especially in this, the second-largest legislative district in the state — will continue to destroy the integrity of the bridges or roadways.

Yaw said he is hopeful for bipartisan support.

“I think that it has a reasonable, rational basis to it, and that’s something that we can all get behind,” he said.