Posted on April 22, 2019
OSWEGO — Oswego is hoping the federal government comes through with money to fix its beloved shoreline damaged during flooding in the summer of 2017.
Mayor William Barlow Jr. said final figures are still being calculated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but “at this time we expect approximately $5 million in restoration funding to be made available to the city of Oswego.”
Barlow said money estimates came from the damage assessment report conducted by Delta Engineers in 2017, documenting the damage done during the time. Barlow said the report was done as a proactive measure knowing FEMA would ask for such documentation.
“We’ve also followed any follow-up, progressive damage done since then,” Barlow said. “We expect an initial $2 million disbursement, possibly in July, with the possibility of another similar sized disbursement towards the end of summer or fall.”
Areas all along Lake Ontario’s southern shoreline suffered damage during the high water and flooding episodes in 2017 — damage was estimated at about $100 million.
From just over the border of Oswego County and Wayne County in Sodus Bay all the way to the border of Oswego County and Jefferson County at Sandy Pond, soil was washed away, buildings and piers were damaged and some camps lost lawns, roads and docks.
Barlow said Oswego’s great loss was Wrights Landing Marina and the International Pier.
“These areas saw major structural damage, undermining the integrity of the pier and the public infrastructure in our marina,” he said. “We had our report divided into four different damage areas, comprised of the area and shoreline around the bottom of Breitbeck Park, the marina and international pier, the West Riverwalk near Bridie Manor, and the shoreline out east in the shore road area.”
Barlow said these projects will be designed to restore the area to how it was before the high waters did their damage. Money also will be used to redesign and rebuild these areas to be less susceptible to such damage by high water.
“With Plan 2014 so far unchanged, and no real changes or plans for change forthcoming in the near future that I’m aware of, we need to restore these areas with the understanding the high water is going to continue and build accordingly,” he said. “The Breitbeck Park shoreline restoration is the project designated to be conducted with the first disbursement (of money).”
Plan 2014 was instituted by the International Joint Commission and International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board to help manage water levels in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Many people and officials believe the levels established by Plan 2014 were too high and resulted in the massive flooding in 2017.
But a report released last summer by the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board states Plan 2014 had nothing to do with the flooding.
“The report finds that extreme weather and water supply conditions were the primary factors that caused Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River water levels to rise to record breaking levels last year,” the report states. “It also finds that Plan 2014 did not cause or exacerbate the devastating floods and associated damages that occurred in 2017.”
Debate about the effectiveness of Plan 2014 goes on to this day.
Barlow said most of the repairs and restoration work will be made to the public infrastructure, which generally goes unnoticed by the public. He said residents may see some changes in the design of the Riverwalk area, where the walk may be raised a bit to prevent high water from washing away the walkway up near the kiddie pool and the Galloway building.
“We will add more riprap to our Harbor Trail Project to prevent the lake shore from eroding more than it already has,” Barlow said.
“It is very important for us to finally secure this funding and allocate it properly. The amount of damage done in just one summer was really insurmountable for city government to address, physically or financially. The city not only would’ve not been able to repair what was damaged, but certainly would not be able to address the repairs with the future in mind. This funding provides us the resource to fix the damage and to fix the damage intelligently, in such a way where we won’t have to worry about this much damage for awhile.”
“We will obviously still be susceptible to damage unless this plan (Plan 2014) is reversed or changed, but it won’t be as dramatic if we rebuild and restore properly,” Barlow said.
“This money is specifically designated for repair restoration work, rather than new projects or public space improvement work. What this funding will do, however, is give us assurance and confidence that the grant money we are spending on our transformative projects like the Harbor Trail project and our upcoming marina improvement projects aren’t a complete waste of time.”
“It’d be a shame if we did all the improvements only to have the high water destroy the area year after year,” he said. “This allows us to implement smart solutions to at least mitigate the damage from the water levels.”
Barlow said Fire Chief Randy Griffin and Deputy Chief Justin Norfleet worked on the project to compile the report for FEMA to obtain the money.
He also thanked the Common Council for voting to pay for the report for FEMA.
Source: watertowndailytimes.com
