Survey Work Complete for Harrison Dam Project

HARRISON, N.Y. – Survey work for Harrison’s “3 Dam Project” is complete but Town Engineer Mike Amodeo said money still needs to be in place if the dams are to be built.

First proposed at the end of February, the potential $1.5 million project would build three dams: one off of Genessee Trail, a second off of Shawnee Trail and a third off Tamarac Trail. Amodeo said the reason for the dams being proposed is that during severe storms, flood water will flow across parallel streets in the neighborhood because the pipes can’t handle the large amount of water flow.

With heavy rains hitting Westchester County earlier in the week, Amodeo said there was some flooding in town but not as much as the town sees during huge storms. Amodeo said a Wetlands Specialist has been on the site where the town is proposing to build the project to flag potential conflicts with the environment.

“We need permits from certain agencies to make sure we are giving the proper accommodation to the surrounding environment to see that the project will not impact it,” Amodeo said. “If we can shift any environmental problems from a large area to a small area, we will do it to cause the least environmental disturbance as possible.”

Amodeo said the storms that hit Westchester County earlier in the week caused some flooding but not enough to reach the severe levels the town gets during the worst storms. Amodeo said some of the flooding was not in the area of the “3 Dam Project” but a separate study of the Brentwood Brook Corridor that was authorized by the town board a couple of months ago is looking at flooding concerns in that area.

“We are going out on a regular basis and looking at other flooding concerns,” Amodeo said. “We have problems with drainage sometimes. We have met with residents to get a consensus of what is happening. We need funding to get any project going so we’ve been doing the background work hoping to get funding from an outside source this year, next year or in the next five years.”

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