Mayor Marvin's Column: Bronxville's Flood Mitigation

The Village has been working very hard to seek flood mitigation grant monies and participate in initiatives at every level of government.  The funding applications are cumbersome and time consuming and I commend Village department heads for taking the extra time it takes to file the myriad of forms for funding opportunities.  Hopefully, their efforts will bear fruit. 

Just this past week, the Village participated in a conference call with representatives of FEMA and the New York State Office of Emergency Management regarding the status of our pending application for flood mitigation in the Midland Avenue corridor/Bronxville School area.  The project would involve a water retention system on school grounds combined with a pumping system to move the water to the Bronx River more quickly than the current flow rate to the river.

The project would provide additional on-site water storage volume and the pumps would get the water to the river before the river crested, thereby decreasing the amount of water that ponds at the school.  This project does not, nor could any project, completely eliminate flooding on school property because of the topography, but it will provide significant mitigation.

We were informed that the decision making bodies were likely to approve Phase I funding for this project which would allow us to begin preparing detailed design documents and commence the permitting and approval process.  The potential grant monies, which in our case amount to $7 million, are extremely sought after because the match for communities is only 25%, in contrast to most grants which have a 50 – 50 split at best.

Though the merits of the project have received the go ahead nod from FEMA, no time frame for approvals was proffered.  We are hopeful that the approvals will come in the usual 60 – 90 day window.  The Village and the School are working hand-in-hand on every stage of the grant process.

We have also applied for funding from the State of New York to repave the Garden Avenue parking lot with a permeable surface.  The permeable material would retain the run-off which heads directly to our school property, which is the second lowest spot in the Village, save for the Bronx River itself.

Since the Garden Avenue lot needs resurfacing, the grant funds would allow us to not only “repave” the area in a way that stores water and be a prototype for other parking facilities, but we would also use the opportunity to remove the parking meters and experiment with a more modern, efficient kiosk system of parking payment and hopefully upgrade the stair area near Citibank.  We understand that we are definitely in the running for these grant monies.

In other good news, the County of Westchester, thanks to the dogged efforts of our County Legislator Gordon Burrows, is about to begin a Phase II water purification project along the Bronx River near Scout Field.  Though the focus of this project is the mitigation of polluted water, a by-product of the work will be some flood mitigation and as we know, every bit helps.  Legislator Burrows has been incredibly responsive to our pleas for flood mitigation help and has made it a priority for our district and this legislative term.

We also have smaller applications in the pipeline for funding for improvements in discrete areas of the Village including Garden Avenue and Parkway Road, which would address issues particular to those neighborhoods.  We are still awaiting the status of our chances for these grant monies.

In an effort to keep the Village in the forefront of flood mitigation along the Bronx River, I joined the recently formed Bronx River Basin-Wide Watershed Advisory Board whose formation was the result of a local law recently enacted by the Westchester County Board of Legislators.  The mission of the committee is to bring all the river communities together to share information about initiatives/problems along the Bronx River and work cooperatively to initiate projects eligible for County funding.

Since Bronxville is at the 23rd mile of the Bronx River, every project upstream has a potential effect on our Village, so it is imperative that we are engaged and aware of what every other community is doing vis-à-vis the river.  For example, if other communities are undertaking major river clean-up efforts, Bronxville could be adversely affected if the speed of the water is changed as it flows downstream. 

Given the interdependence of any mitigation efforts along the river, it only makes sense that the County of Westchester coordinate the efforts.  Also, by being in sync with other Westchester communities we can learn from their local efforts and copy successful projects.  The Trustees and I continue to make flood mitigation a high priority as we go forward into the next budget year.