Archive: Opinions

Water is really dangerous.  And in New York it is damaging in more ways than one.  Increasing unpaid state mandates and more stringent storm water rules are putting more financial strain on builders and municipalities.  And storms like the one we had at the beginning of last month remind us that however well prepared for excessive rain storms you are, it's not enough.

When I first became aware of new storm water regulations I saw the picture as the Big Bad State forcing an unfair burden onto local municipalities.  Both the Town and Village of Lansing were faced with onerous planning and reporting and monitoring.  The Town seemed better equipped to handle it because it has more employees to split the burden.  Reporting was a nuisance -- a big nuisance.  But it was doable.  And the town got its storm water law passed pretty much on time.

The Village really suffered.  Their law was over a year after the deadline.  Trustee Lynn Leopold did the brunt of the work, trying to keep up with a huge reporting burden that first year.  She had some help, but she was swamped.  Since then a number of municipalities have joined with local organizations to share the reporting burden.  That has made it a bit easier, but the bar keeps rising faster than the waters.  More and more is expected.

Part of that is having storm water laws in place, and using planning board approvals to insure that an increasing number of regulations are enforced, especially in new developments.  That not only adds cost to the town, but increasingly makes it more and more expensive for builders.  That is a real problem at a time when Tompkins County is desperate for new affordable housing.  Last week in this column I worried about a higher tax burden changing the demographic of Lansing from an integrated mixed-income community to a wealthy suburb.  If builders can only afford to build higher-priced homes, how will that additionally impact the character of the town?

Lansing Town Engineer David Herrick says that changes in state law have abandoned the linear approach in favor of stopping excessive storm water at its source.  The linear approach was simple.  You dealt with the flow on your property until it got to the next property, at which point it became your neighbor's problem.

Herrick says engineers are still learning how to deal with that flow at the source of potential flooding with rain gardens, retaining ponds and other techniques.  But it is difficult because Lansing is a big rock covered with patches of dirt.  Rain just runs down the rock until it gets to Cayuga Lake.  Our soil, such as it is, is just not absorbant.

Supervisor Kathy Miller painted a picture of Whispering Pines Wednesday at the Town Board's working session as a key example of what can go wrong.  She said after the storm she toured the neighborhood of upscale homes riddled with pools of water in front and back yards.  Town Attorney Guy Krogh noted that the Town Highway Department proposed a storm water mitigation plan some years ago, but that two residents in particular absolutely refused the Town the right to put buried pipes on their properties.  When the storm hit the neighborhood reaped what it sowed.

What better illustration of why storm water control is needed?  Tompkins County estimated that storm did a half million dollars of damage to county infrastructure and Town of Enfield properties.  A $480,000 grant  to the Tompkins County Planning Department for a Ludlowville Stormwater Control Project may be starting to yield results -- a Ludlowville resident told me she didn't notice untoward flooding during that storm.  Yet the Lansing Highway and Fire Departments were kept very busy with a large number of calls because of flooding, all from that one storm.

The bottom line is that New York municipalities are between a rock and a wet place.  Unfunded mandates to control storm water are very damaging, but so are the consequences of not controlling it.  My own yard is so soaked I can't mow it.  Mandates may be bad, but after last month's storm and the one last weekend you can't just say that state legislators are all wet.

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