AMHERST
Hearing set on drainage plan funds
The Amherst Town Board will hold a public hearing at its Monday night meeting regarding the need to borrow $1.7 million to fund a drainage plan designed to alleviate flooding that primarily affects neighborhoods in northeast Amherst.
The meeting will be held at 7 p. m. Monday in the Council Chambers of the Amherst Municipal Center, 5583 Main St., Williamsville.
To address long-standing resident complaints about wet basements and washed-out roadways, the town last year commissioned Wendel Duschscherer Architects and Engineers to develop a flood mitigation plan for the town.
Local and federal guidelines recommend that drainage systems be designed to withstand all but a 50-year or 100-year major flood event. But some drainage systems in flood-prone parts of Amherst have flood limitations as low as two to three years.
The consultants focused primarily on two troublesome drainage ditches that run north-south in Amherst, east of Hopkins Road. One of the ditches also collects water upstream from the Town of Clarence to the east.
Wendel Duschscherer produced a recommended action plan two months ago. The firm’s key recommendations, which will be the subject of Monday’s public hearing, include:
• The creation of two retention ponds upstream along Youngs Road and at Bassett Park, both town property, in addition to the proposed expansion of an existing retention pond on the private property of the Amberleigh Retirement Community on Maple Road.
The retention ponds would hold storm water upstream so that it lessens likelihood of properties flooding downstream as the ditches empty into Ellicott and Tonawanda creeks.
The plan also recommends constricting a storm-water outlet at Windsor Park Dam, adjacent to the Amberleigh pond.
• Cleaning, deepening and widening various ditch sections.
• Improving or reconstructing 16 bridges and culverts that run along or over the flood-prone ditches. Two would involve county cooperation, and two would involve negotiations with private property owners.
After the public hearing, the Town Board will have to delay its vote on the $1.7 million in town borrowing even though board support seems to exist for the ambitious drainage program.
The board must first agree to pay $134,930 upfront to cover the design phase of the drainage plan to satisfy state environmental review requirements.
