Dan Hust | Democrat Assistant Planning Commissioner Jill Weyer explains the county’s planned 2010 flood mitigation program to legislators on Thursday.

County plans flood projects

By Dan Hust
SULLIVAN COUNTY — January 12, 2010 — County legislators were presented with $326,500 in flood mitigation plans for 2010 on Thursday.
Planning Commissioner Luiz Aragon, Assistant Commissioner Jill Weyer and Soil & Water Conservation District Manager Brian Brustman brought maps detailing a variety of programs, including nine projects in and around Jeffersonville.
The focus on that area, said Brustman, was due to the recent major flooding events that have hit the townships of Callicoon and Delaware and the Village of Jeffersonville, in addition to a high concentration of citizens’ complaints in those locales.
He remarked that Westbrookville – hard hit five years ago – has not had horrendous problems since, and the Roscoe and Livingston Manor area are under a separate mitigation program being coordinated by the Army Corps of Engineers (to which the county is contributing $32,500 this year).
The county has, however, earmarked $3,000 for a bridge cleanup in Roscoe and $25,000 for a feasibility study in the Manor.
Areas along the Delaware River were either minorly flooded in recent years or considered beyond the scope and ability of this program, Brustman added.
But there, too, $94,000 has been budgeted to study and work on three Delaware tributaries: the Basket Creek in Long Eddy, the Hankins Creek in Hankins and Mileses, and the Callicoon Creek in Callicoon and Hortonville.
As far as the Neversink River, it was pointed out that Holiday Mountain has rebuilt its facilities above flood levels, and Soil & Water has entered into a contract with the New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection to work on flooding issues upstream of the Neversink Reservoir.
Countywide, said Aragon and Weyer, $45,000 in funding will be made available to town supervisors on an emergency basis for unexpected flooding.
In the meantime, so long as it can get the needed permits from the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation, the county plans to spend about $105,000 replacing/
enlarging culverts, stabilizing creekbeds and removing debris.
In one spot – Hess Brook upstream from the car wash in Kohlertown – county workers will try to realign the brook itself. At $18,000, it’s considered a cheaper, more effective alternative than reworking the bridge and County Route 164 which crosses it.
The most expensive fix will be in Laundry Brook off Faubel Road north of Jeffersonville, where $40,000 is expected to be spent on stopping erosion using heavy rock.
The other seven projects near Jeff include:
• $16,000 to reinforce the shoulder of Buck Brook Road as it follows the shore of its namesake near North Branch, along with stabilizing Buck Brook itself with heavy rock.
• $7,800 to remove gravel in the east branch of the Callicoon Creek near the horse track in Kohlertown.
• $7,500 to replace a culvert on Stump Pond Road north of Youngsville and stabilize the stream next to it.
• $6,000 to excavate the inlets and outlets of existing culverts – and possibly replace them – on DeWitt Flats Road between Jeff and Youngsville.
• $4,000 to work on the Callicoon Creek upstream from the Stone Arch Bridge near Kenoza Lake.
• $3,500 to dredge a drainage channel behind Jeffersonville homes and replace an undersized culvert underneath Route 52.
• $2,000 to remove debris from Jones Brook on Route 52A.
Additionally, the county has allotted $22,000 to finish the 2009 project near Mowers & More in Youngsville.
Legislature Chairman Jonathan Rouis has also proposed a countywide stream cleanup program. He’s asked county officials to consider partnering with townships and villages to provide technical assistance in exchange for their manpower in mitigating flooding.
Brustman said he’d work up a proposal, and about $1,000 is already budgeted for an annual cleanup event.