Soil and Water Conservation District to hold series of public meetings

The Tioga County Soil and Water Conservation District (Tioga County SWCD) will be holding a series of three different watershed focused public informational meetings where residents of these watersheds can learn about watershed function and hear an overview of field assessments completed in each of these watersheds.  

Meetings will take place at the Ronald E. Dougherty County Office Building, Hubbard Auditorium, Main Floor, 56 Main St. in Owego on Monday, March 4 for Huntington Creek/Monkey Run; Tuesday, March 5 for Wappasening Creek; and Wednesday, March 6 for Apalachin Creek. All meetings begin at 6 p.m.

The three informational meetings will provide an overview of the “Susquehanna Regional River Initiative” and watershed assessment findings completed in the fall of 2018.  

Funding for this work is through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) for long-term recovery and resiliency projects. Funding is being delivered through the NY Rising Community Reconstruction (NYRCR) Program of New York State Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR).  

The purpose of this project is to establish a regional river initiative to build resilience and capacity in the Broome, Tioga and Village of Sidney NY Rising Communities. The project will link the local communities together with a consistent comprehensive watershed approach to understand and address flooding issues in the Upper Susquehanna River. 

The initiative will include two main project components: Education and Outreach to municipal officials, county legislators and residents of the NYRCR Tioga, Broome and Sidney Communities; Watershed Assessment and modeling to identify natural infrastructure practices for implementation. 

The watershed assessment phase has been completed and an overview of the findings, including a list of recommended priorities, will be presented at the three meetings.

The purpose of the assessment was to inventory and evaluate a number of physical factors including eroding stream banks, damaged segments of streams, bridges, culverts, and debris jams. The inventory and evaluation consisted of SWCD employees and associates physically investigating the culverts, streams and tributaries and mapping the above criteria.

This information is being used to identify and target funding for cost effective practices that can be implemented to reduce flooding impacts in each of these watersheds. The meetings listed are intended to help present the findings to the residents of the three watersheds, a brief overview of how streams function and why damaging flooding events occur, have a discussion on flood impacts and resiliency, and gain input on prioritizing potential future projects.  

Designs will be based on an integrated, multiple barrier approach across the watershed, looking at implementing practices in the headwaters, across the landscape and finally at the streams edge. The result will provide a chance to reduce the effects of floodwaters by de-synchronizing flows, infiltrating runoff, and spreading flow into the natural floodplain. 

Watershed assessments will look to identify project areas that will focus on the natural infrastructure in the watershed to address storm water and implement projects that promote this approach. Wetland creation and restoration with flood attenuation, green infrastructure, natural stream rehabilitation and floodplain enhancement through berm removal along with installation of visual landmark flood signs to educate residents. These are a few examples of natural infrastructure projects they would identify and implement. However in the longer term the watershed assessments will identify numerous cost-effective practices/projects that can be undertaken by a community in order to improve resiliency and reduce flooding. 

The plans will be ready for future funding and allow for rapid implementation as additional funding becomes available.