Picente Announced New Program To Mitigate Future Flood Damage

Picente Asks Board of Legislators for $500,000 For Program

Oneida County Executive has announced a new County Program aimed at building Oneida County back better after the flood of 2013. Picente has asked the Oneida County Board of Legislators to commit $500,000 to address the public works projects within the municipalities that were severely impacted by the storm water runoff or flooding from their waterways or bodies of water.

Picente said “Flooding is a natural disaster. It’s no one’s fault. However, we must take lessons from this tragedy and build Oneida County back better than it was before. We have an opportunity with this plan to do just that. Together the county and municipalities can put real dollars towards projects that will prevent flood damage.”

This money is not for repairs to any public infrastructure, instead it will be used to fund projects that will lead to improvements to waterways to prevent or mitigate future flooding damage.

County Executive Picente went on to say “This is an opportunity for local governments to work together to make residents of Oneida County more safe and secure in their homes, on their roads and crossing their bridges. Together we can use this program to create a stronger safer Oneida County.”

The funding will serve as a 50% match to the local municipality that wants to construct the project. Oneida County will contract with Oneida County Soil and Water to administer this money. Interested municipalities will submit their project requests to Soil and Water. Soil & Water will approve or work to modify the projects and will issue the appropriate and necessary permits.

The program is being created in response to the needs of many of the impacted municipalities in this summer’s storms, and in response to the request for assistance to the Town of New Hartford by County Legislator James D’Onofrio and City of Utica Legislators Emil Papparella and Ed Welsh.