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Thread: Town of Lancaster plans to address drainage issues

  1. #1
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    Town of Lancaster plans to address drainage issues

    At Monday evening's town board work session (precedes the regular town board meeting), Code Enforcement Officer Matt Fischione informed the board that there have been 90 stormwater violations for the year. 52 general complaints were received in the month of November – 776 general complaints for the 2019 year, thus far.

    Highway Superintendent Dan Amatura and Fischione then discussed the need for a plan to address drainage issues within the town. Amatura suggested getting a hydrologist and doing an aerial view of the town because down the road he could foresee more and more problems developing – especially with new development. “The water has to go someplace,” said Amatura.

    Councilman Ron Ruffino interjected that the drainage issue needs final solution as ‘we are just moving water from one area to the next’.
    Amatura used the relatively new Pear Tree Lane subdivision as an example. “They are having problems there already. When we fix that problem, we just move it over to Windsor Ridge. We have to stop doing that.”

    Fischione interjected that the first thing residents do when there is a drainage problem is to get a shovel and do some digging. “They don’t bother with any engineering, they don’t consider grade elevation, they don’t ask questions of the town. They just make changes …”

    Ruffino interjected: “And create more problems”.

    Fischione: “They do create more problems. Ironically, I had a discussion this morning with the Erie County Highway Department and there has a two-decade long problem on Ransom Road. Get a shovel, move some dirt, raise the elevation and we are moving a pile of water from one side of the road to the other.”

    Amatura: “Some of this has to do initially with the developers. Pear Tree was done improperly. Pear Tree was approved without a rear-yard drainage system in place.”

    Fischione: “In 2003, this town passed a resolution requiring every subdivision to have a rear-yard drainage system.”

    Amatura: “Before you came on board (Fischione), not very many subdivisions were grading the property accordingly and that comes back at us as well.”

    Fischione: “It certainly does and since then we have made some changes where we are looking at the development plans and ensuring proper grading is done as well as stormwater capture and release. If not right, the subdivision development does not take place.”

    Amatura: “Hopefully, by the start of the year we can get a drainage committee in place to address a lot of these problems.”

    Fischione: “Absolutely”.

    Comment

    I commend Fischione and Amatura for recognizing and addressing a serious problem that has existed in this town for a number of years – the need for rear-yard drainage systems that operate efficiently, stormwater collection ponds that are right sized, and most importantly new development property grading that allows the water to get to the receivers.

    Since 2003, the town has had a requirement in place that all rear yards have a drainage system in place. Until Mr. Fischione took office in 2016, developers may have installed a rear-yard drainage system, but with little thought to level land elevation (grading) and getting the water to the stormwater receivers.

    Many of today’s flooding and drainage issues in town are the result of poor land management over the years. What took so long to come to this point? How many town individuals signed off on past development projects without any concerns or vision that this would bite them in the ass one day in the future.

    Thank you, Mr. Fischione. I hope you will be around in 2020!

  2. #2
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    The solution in southern lancaster has always been "Dump it in slate bottom creek". The flooding and erosion are out of control for a creek that used to be nothing more than a trickle.

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    Member gorja's Avatar
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    The Lancaster Sun article regarding this -


    Georgia L Schlager

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    Then from there it dumps into slate bottom creek which swells quite a bit now.

    In this picture the water is 4-5' deep and roughly 125' across. Keep in mind, this was always a trickle.

    IMG_20170713_165640.jpg

    https://youtu.be/scc4wicM6c8

  5. #5
    Member gorja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by yaksplat View Post
    Then from there it dumps into slate bottom creek which swells quite a bit now.

    In this picture the water is 4-5' deep and roughly 125' across. Keep in mind, this was always a trickle.

    IMG_20170713_165640.jpg

    https://youtu.be/scc4wicM6c8
    Wow, this wasn't after a heavy rain event or anything?
    Just an average day?

    Georgia L Schlager

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    This was after a heavy rain. It's at the 1000 year flood stage. This stage means that during any given year, the water has 0.1% chance of hitting this level. However, we've hit this several times in the past few years...

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    Tony Fracasso - Admin
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    Sprawl using cheap farmland and what you do you get? Flooding...

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