USA: Meeting on Livingston Manor Flood Study Scheduled for May 9

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC), the Town of Rockland, and Sullivan County will hold a public meeting to discuss the results of a major study on flooding and ecosystem restoration in Livingston Manor.

The meeting will take place on Thursday, May 9, from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m., at the Livingston Manor Firehouse.

Officials from the Army Corps, the NYDEC and the Town of Rockland will talk about the alternatives they studied and the plan they recommend in order to reduce the risk of flooding and improve ecosystems in the area.

The public will have ample opportunity to ask questions and engage the presenters. The public may view posters and meet team members informally from 6:30 to 7 p.m., when the formal presentation will begin. There will be a public question and answer session as part of the meeting and another chance to meet informally with officials once the meeting is over.

The Army Corps and the NYDEC launched a feasibility study in the fall of 2009 to investigate ways to reduce flood risk and restore ecosystems in and around Livingston Manor. Other partners in the study included Trout Unlimited and the Open Space Institute.

Livingston Manor has endured periodic flooding for more than a century. The study examined a number of proposals designed to reduce the risk of flooding and identify areas for ecosystem restoration. In evaluating these proposals, the Army Corps and its partners were guided by two federal mandates:

-The project must produce a net economic benefit; and

-The project must improve the environment.

The Corps developed and analyzed numerous alternatives to produce its recommended course of action. It should be noted that none of the proposals considered would protect the community from the most severe storms possible. To do so would require an investment beyond the scope of federal law. The recommended measures are designed to manage the less severe but more frequent storms that beset the community.

The recommended plan, noted as Plan G in the report, would:

-Create a detention structure upstream at the site of an old airport. This structure would help disperse and control flow during times of high water and restore the natural stream channel and some wetlands on the site.

-Widen the floodplain of the Little Beaverkill downstream of the Main Street bridge, which would create additional area for the floodway and reduce flooding impacts downtown.

The cost of this plan, should the partners decide to move ahead, would be approximately $4 million and would be shared between the federal government and its local partner, in this case the state of New York, on a 65-35 percent basis.

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Press Release, May 7, 2013