Ellicott creek - Flooding again .

[4248]

Here we go again folks - the unkept Creek is over flowing its banks and over a Town approved buried sewer line. Check out these photo's:
Standing on the Stony Road bridge - looking south - notice debris building up.
Attachment 4010
The second picture is from the same spot looking north/west. Notice the water encroaching on the house - its past the lawn near the trees.
Attachment 4011
In this picture you can see the water is almost hitting the bridge - its usually about 3 or 4 feet lower.Its hard to see but - just about four feet from the waters edge is a manhole and a large green pipe sticking up. That area should be dry.
Attachment 4012

This isn't even the worst of it - drive down Genessee from the Fire Hall in Bowmansville - notice the creeks level. Then drive east up Genessee - when you look to the south - notice the flooded yards all the way up to Stony Road - turn right onto Stony - drive south to the main bridge - notice the flooding in yards as you pass.

Park - safely if you can - look at the creek covering the manholes for the new sewer lines. Now drive up to Pleasant view - turn right - about 200 ft you will see the Creek on your right and a small cement structure to your left - that structure house a pumping station.

Because of the Town approving homes in this area - sewage has to constantly be pumped out. They are actually pulling the sewage out of the sewers on Stony Road and now the new Cross Creeks subdivision on Pleasant view near Pavement - and eventually all the rest of the new homes the Town will approve east of Cross Roads.

But - thank God for FEMA - they came up with a solution - they charge about $1800-2000.00 dollars a year to home owners for flood insurance. Thats mainly because the Town always refused to do any flood control projects.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Permitting sewer installation in the south branch of Ellicott Creek at the Stony Road bridge wasbut one of the dumbest things the town ever allowed – for myriad reasons. That’s not to say that past development, all the way to the Greco era, did not have as many poor planning events supported by town boards that allowed the indiscriminate destruction and/or filling in of town wetlands for the sake of developer gain, town revenue and campaign donations.

When that sanitary sewer line was installed for the Cross Creek subdivision development several years ago, it was some of us residents (not the town) who contacted the DEC to inform them of the storm water violations taking place. The developer paid two fines for the violations that took place.

Segmentation and the BS that many of the wetlands were isolated and not connected during snowmelt and rainy seasons when in fact drainage ditches were obvious during dry seasons and was the time developers performed their wetland delineations found support and acceptance by the town. In the process many functional and valuable wetlands that act as sponges and purify water were lost.

Developers who promised to pipe/swale storm water to collection ponds and on to creeks often put in drainage pipes and receivers that led to nowhere.

Houses that were built in wetlands have sump pumps running 24/7 and are experiencing structural damage over time and the problem will worsen; structural damage like cracked basement walls/foundations (or as developers call it, an act of God), doors and windows that won’t open, bowed floors, etc.