A water channel off Jones & Gifford Avenue (Google Maps)
Jamestown City Council will be asked to give approval for a project to maintain water channels in the city.
Acting Director of Public Works Mark Roetzer informed Council at their work session that the channels in Jackson-Taylor Park and in the Jones & Gifford Avenue area have not been adequately maintained for the last 50 years, resulting in a build up of sediment and debris, “Currently, we’re not able to get back and access these channels to clean them at all. It’s all in wetland. It’s foggy, it’s swampy, it’s very difficult to get to. So, the main goal of this project would be to get in back to these channels and haul out the debris and sediment to help clean them out and help storm water flow a little bit better again.”
Roetzer said the project would involved creating access trails or access points back along the channels so that crews could get in with equipment to haul the material out. He said that material would be taken to a separate area to dry out before it’s transported to the County Landfill due to most of it being contaminated, “This project takes place in the wetlands as well. So, we’ll also have to do wetland mitigation. Like I said before, this is about 1.2 miles of channels. We estimate there’s about 14,000 cubic yards of material that we’re going to have to take out of these channels. That equates to roughly 1,400 to 2,000 truckloads over the course of a few construction seasons we’re going to have to take out.”
Roetzer said that in areas that are too wet to get equipment in, the city will dredge with help from local organizations. He added that the goal is have the channel maintenance on a five to seven year rotation so it doesn’t return to the state it is in.
Roetzer said the full cost of the project is $5.5 million with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has allocated full funding for with a required 20% local match, totaling $1.1 million from the City of Jamestown. The City will have until 2029 to use the money for the project, which will likely be stretched over three years. Roetzer said the city is working on ways to reduce the cost of the project and to find alternate sources for their required match, including working with local groups on the wetland mitigation, applying for other DEC grants that could count toward the match, a request in tipping fee reductions at the landfill and/or use of shared services with Chautauqua County. He said while there is federal money for the project, the total isn’t known and it can’t be used toward the city’s match.
Roetzer added that if City Council passes the agreement between the city and the state for the project, DPW will start engineering work in four to five weeks. He said a request for proposals is going out for an engineering firm to help DPW with the preliminary work and final project design. Roetzer added that the city is fully invested in the project up to this point, having worked with a consultant for a number of years to get the state DEC permits needed.
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