It was beautiful weather this weekend for checking up on a multimillion dollar project that the Town of Irondequoit has undertaken. We walked down Hoffman Road to the Spring Valley area where about ten homes are. A creek call ONT-112 flows through this area and it overflows occaisionally. Some people around here think this area was always a wetland and the homeowners here should not expect the State to spend our money to protect their property. Other (some long time) residents say this area is used to be dry enough fo neighborhood gardens in the lowland.
But according to the press release posted on Senator Schumer’s website, the Town blew it when they approved the construction of a near-by housing development 15 years ago. That project allowed about a hundred houses to be built on a hillside with an inadequate drainage system. The runoff from this development overflows ONT-112 so the town proposed a mitigation project that called for realigning the stream, elevating roads, adding culverts and erosion barriers. After ten years of negotiations the project got Army Corps approval and taxpayer funding and is now in full swing. And the press release says “it needed it to be rushed due to New York State requirements that work on the project be completed by October 1, 2008 due to trout spawning in the stream.” It’s October 20th and we didn’t see any troat down there.
I did a post on this subject a while back called, “I’m Against It” and Pat Meredith from the Public Works Department asked me to contact him for all the facts. I may do that but for now it is more fun to speculate without the facts.
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