Candidate for
Supervisor; Town of Mamaroneck

Flooding Solutions can't wait.

We need to deal with major issues like flooding now and not be waiting for years for help to come from Washington, Albany or White Plains. We need to look at things we can do ourselves. Everyone agrees that it's too large a problem to be solved only on a local level but there are things we can and should be doing to help ourselves. The consensus seems to be that our best bet is to try and detain or slow up the water as much as possible so we can handle it without a massive and very expensive complete overhaul of our infrastructure. Sure bigger pipes or culverts will be nice but you still need to deal with the water at some point before it floods a community or downstream neighborhood. Right now we are feeding our Storm Waters into our rivers and streams. The more run-off we pour into these waterways, the quicker they overflow their banks and flood our communities. We should try to capture this water as close to it's source as possible,that is, right when and where it falls, around our homes , parking lots and any "paved over" spaces we can get to. There are several alternatives available including Honeycomb grids that allow grass to grow up through the grid and water to drain through it rather than into our storm drains. There's also gravel and paver blocks available which let water permeate into the ground, rather than flow into the streets and sewers. I feel The Town should take the lead and see if we can provide some kind of economic incentive to our citizens to encourage, certainly new construction, but possibly even existing paved-over areas to become "sponges" rather than "flumes" shooting water into our streets. Perhaps we can do a bulk purchase and make the materials available to our citizens at prices more attractive than they could get, buying for just one home. Perhaps we need to re-think our 1/2 acre or larger requirement before you need to get Town permission, from our Tree Preservation Commission, to cut down trees on your property. There has to be things we can do to help solve this problem, which, up to now, just seems to be getting worse.