Flood Areas Getting Portable Dams, $1 Million in State Aid

GREECE, N.Y. (AP) —
Flood Areas, Getting, Portable Dams, $1 Million, State Aid
An inflatable dam is deployed by New York National Guard members Tuesday to combat flooding on Lake Ontario at Sodus Point, NY. (Philip Kamrass/Office of Gov. Cuomo)

Water-filled portable dams are being deployed and $1 million in state funding will go toward emergency repairs to wastewater treatment systems in two flood-damaged Lake Ontario communities, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.

A temporary emergency barrier system using water-filled dams instead of sandbags is being deployed in Greece in Monroe County and Sodus Point in Wayne County. The two communities also will get $500,000 each to repair and upgrade flood-impacted wastewater infrastructure.

The Democrat said he has also renewed a request to the Army Corps of Engineers for rock structures to safeguard flood-prone areas.

Cuomo again blasted the U.S.-Canadian panel that controls the outflow of water from Lake Ontario, saying the agency bears much of the blame for flooding in New York’s lakeside communities.

“I think they pulled the trigger too late” on increasing outflow, Cuomo said in the Rochester suburb of Greece on Tuesday. “They got behind, and now we have a real problem.”

The International Joint Commission responded to Cuomo’s comments by saying no one could have predicted the severe flooding throughout the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system caused by record rainfall.

The commission-directed board that controls outflow through a St. Lawrence River dam said Tuesday it would increase water releases starting Wednesday.

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