Hurley Residents Describe Impact of Their Drainage Crises to Town Board - by Maya Schubert/Kingston Wire
The Town of Hurley is working to address a dozen or so drainage across the town, according to officials. Several easement and drainage projects in both Hurley and West Hurley are in various stages of getting started in the wake of residents’ repeated complaints of flooding and compromised plumbing.
At Tuesday night’s town board meeting, several residents pleaded with the town board to help them with problems at their properties. Orchard Street residents Christian Moller and Nanine Funicello, whose septic issues the board declared an emergency on Sept. 5, said that though the town engineer inspected their property following the emergency declaration and began repairs on a broken drainage pipe in mid-September, their plumbing and flooding problems haven’t gotten any better.
“We are still inundated with water,” said Funicello. “I’m really confused as to what is going on at this point … frankly, I’m living in a house that I can’t live in or sell.”
According to Funicello, the septic problems have compromised the plumbing on her property so that she and her family have had to shower and wash clothes at her parents’ house “for a significant amount of the year.”
“We have gone to Stewart’s to use the restroom more times than I think I would like to admit, and Stewart’s would like to admit,” she said.
Two residents of Brittany Drive in West Hurley recalled first bringing their flooding problems to a town board in 2003. Their property was finally given attention in October of last year, but the couple said the project was deferred by town engineers because the ground on their property was too wet year-round to work on.
“All the while, Jill and I are spending tens of thousands of dollars trying to keep our basement dry and our backyard usable,” Jeff Albert said.
Town engineer Dennis Larios said the broken drainage pipe near Orchard Street had caused a sinkhole and needed an immediate repair for safety reasons. He stated that the town engineers were now mapping and studying solutions to steer runoff from neighboring roads to a nearby brook.
He added that this year’s July-September rainfall, a whopping 23 inches compared to the usual 13, made the ground too soggy to dig into and prevented the survey crew for Brittany Drive from working. He said the crew was returning in November and expressed his hopes that frost would soon firm up the ground to make conditions more workable.
Highway Superintendent Mike Shultis added that his department was also working on a number of drainage projects.
Town Supervisor Melinda McKnight, in a later conversation with Kingston Wire, explained that the natural geography of the town, haphazard subdivisions made in the 1950s that did not account for stormwater runoff and a changing environment were combining to bring longstanding issues to a head.
At the same meeting, the town board approved an agreement to hire Greenway Environmental Services to create a zero-waste management system for the town. Also, the board set a curfew for Halloween, which this year falls on a Tuesday. It is 8 p.m. for children ages 16 and under who are not accompanied by an adult.