New Paltz Evolves to Combat Flooding
Flooding is nothing new in New Paltz.
“ All of my properties on the north and south side of Main Street have
double sump pumps or underground cisterns,” says Valerie Erwin, a prominent landlord in the village.
The Village of New Paltz lies within the larger Town of New Paltz in Ulster County, New York. It’s home to the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz. The village is built out in all directions from State Route 299, as it slopes downward towards the river. The scenic Shawangunk mountains provide the backdrop, with the historic Mohonk Mountain House and its stone tower visibly perched on top. Between the village and the mountains lies the Wallkill and its floodplain. Since New Paltz was founded in the 17th century, the floodplain around the Wallkill has provided excellent farmland, albeit at the risk of losing everything to a flood. As time went on the town became developed, and structures began to encroach on the river and the floodplain, putting the village at risk.
“I hate to say it, but I think we’ve lived with controlling water for so
long, it’s become matter of fact,” Erwin says.
As a landlord she strives to address issues before they arise. After years of handling and preventing flooding on her properties, she’s become battle hardened.
Sometimes preparation falls short.
Hurricane Irene hit New Paltz in late August of 2011, swelling the Wallkill River to a lake.
Town and Country Condominiums, located on Huguenot street right along the Wallkill, was overrun with water. Although there was a small barrier, known as a berm, between the buildings and the river to help keep water off the property, it didn’t work. The berm instead prevented water from draining, causing the condos to flood with run-off from the rest of the village.
Overflow from The Wallkill isn’t the only flood-related issue facing New Paltz, it’s just the most obvious. Stormwater run-off exacerbated much of the damage to the village itself. The damage from the Wallkill is based on proximity, while stormwater can appear from nowhere, carving the landscape and relocating water in areas that are not typically flood-prone, such as the center of town.
Mountain View Nursing and Rehab Center, a nursing home for the disabled elderly, was cut off from emergency services as the only bridge connecting it to the rest of the world was washed away. Run-off from SUNY and the surrounding area turned the drainage stream into a raging torrent that disintegrated the road from the bottom up.
In the wake of Hurricane Irene in 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to assess the town and village to make recommendations to infrastructure and building codes that would buffer the impacts of flooding. The EPA held a community meeting and workshop in January 2016. The agency issued a memo, titled Next Steps, which details its findings and a timeline for implementation of suggestions. According to the EPA the biggest challenges facing the village are to reduce and mitigate stormwater runoff, and properly protect land that is at-risk of flooding through planning.
Immediately after Irene, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) updated the floodplain, making it wider, but putting no new structures at-risk. FEMA’s purpose is to provide addition support during disaster situations. The agency also provides assessments that are the basis for coding regulations. Using updated floodplain maps the village successfully passed new building laws restricting the ability of landowners to develop on the floodplain.
“Construction on the floodplain is heavily regulated,” says Bryant Arms, head of the building department in the village. “No new structures are allowed to be built on the floodplain, and within the village there are only two structures within the updated floodplain: Town and Country Condominiums and the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) across the street.”
This fulfills part of the EPA’s criteria, preventing more people from living and working on at-risk land.
The village alsot took steps on managing and maintaining stormwater. Much of the village is an impermeable surface, as water cannot penetrate asphalt, concrete or roofing to be reabsorbed by the ground. As the water runs off these surfaces it forms streams that drain to the Wallkill. The problem arises when the run-off accumulates faster than it can drain.
Neil Bettez, the supervisor for the town, says green infrastructure is one way to address the stormwater issue. “Gravel driveways, rainwater-catch systems that act as holding tanks for rain and planting trees are all relatively easy and inexpensive methods of absorbing that run-off,” Bettez says as we walk around the pond at SUNY New Paltz.
He points out a few of the measures the college has taken to alleviate run-off. As a large campus the amount of impermeable land makes SUNY New Paltz a contributor to the amount of water that travels through the village.
The college put in a permeable asphalt parking lot along route 32 in 2013. Parking lots constructed with regular asphalt don’t let water through its surface, forcing the water to channel elsewhere and creating run-off. The permeable lot enables water to breach the surface and move downwards into the soil, filtering out contaminants by using gravel and sand.
SUNY New Paltz has multiple rainwater catching cisterns on campus that store rain that would otherwise end up draining through the rest of the village. A 1,000 gallon cistern is used to water plants and shrubs in bioretention areas when there isn’t enough rainfall. Water from another cistern that catches the water from Wooster Hall’s roof is used for flushing urinals and toilets. By temporarily capturing rainfall, the school not only provides a buffer for the village’s stormwater system, but also reduces its own use of potable water.
The school is also using landscaping to create areas of high absorption, called bioretention. Landscaping with a mixture of plant species that thrive in wet ground can reduce runoff, as the plants absorb water.
Bettez says property owners can take a cue from the campus’s efforts. “Planting trees, or other thirsty species, is a great way to not only curb runoff but increase property value,” he says. “It’s a great way to make an impact, especially if your land is wet to begin with.”
The village is wet to begin with, with lots of rain and snow. The area receives close to 20 inches more precipitation annual than the national average. When you couple that with the soil quality, which Bettez describes as “mostly this reddish clay that doesn’t absorb much, if anything,” much of that water cannot drain effectively, even with the Wallkill so close by.
“The soil quality exacerbates the problem,” Bettez says. “Once the water starts to channel, it doesn’t slow down or stop. Nothing absorbs it. We have to manage how much goes where.”
Hurricane Irene demonstrated what happens when your tributaries and runoff channels get overfilled too quickly. They become raging torrents than chew up the land.
After a culvert pipe broke in the underwater drainage stream that runs alongside Hasbrouck Avenue officials decided to open it up to simulate a real stream, a process called “daylighting.”
The daylighting process provides multiple benefits. Former mayor Jason West, says, the project cuts costs and bolsters the stormwater management system. Opening up the stream prevents the pipe from blowing out in heavy rain. The pressure is released by spilling over the banks of the stream. While the new stream may flood Peace Park in heavy storms, it prevents catastrophic damage to the lower portions of the village’s drainage system, some of which are over 130 years old.
The village has been repairing and replacing storm drains throughout the town.
“Many storm drains on my streets have been improved, particularly on
the intersection of Grove and John. It used to flood terribly there.
My basement would flood to four or five feet if the sump failed,” Erwin explains. “It doesn’t flood any more. When they fixed the sanitary sewers on Manheim down to grove, any flooding that still existed between North Oakwood and Grove was rectified. Last year we had run off running under my barn on John street. The village sent a team to fix it quite quickly.”
The Wallkill Valley Rail Trail passes through New Paltz on its path from Gardiner to Kingston, following the Wallkill through the village. At the intersection of the rail trail and Market Street, running underneath the trail, lies a culvert made from stone, dating back to the 1880s.
This narrow passage, too thin for even a person to pass through, is the outflow for Peace Park and much of the drainage from the Southside and Windsor Court apartment complexes.
“We consider this to be critical infrastructure,” says David Gilmour, village planner. “The culvert contains waterlines for the college. If we saw a storm that threatened to destroy the culvert the school’s water supply would be greatly impacted. Not only that, but there would be damage to the rail trail and Water Street as well, both important economic draws in New Paltz.”
Gilmour detailed a plan to replace the culvert, costing roughly $300 thousand. The project is funded by an award from the New York Communities Rising program, a state fund that provides money to communities most at risk for flooding. The culvert replacement project is currently underway.
The town and village received $3 million, according to the March 2014 memo put out by NY Rising. Close to $3 million was spent replacing the Carmine Liberta Bridge, which spans the Wallkill, providing access to the Shawangunk’s by way of Route 299. During Irene the bridge was within inches of being completely underwater, putting the water and electrical lines running through it at risk. Construction to raise the bridge and better insulate the utility lines was completed in the Fall of this year.
The remainder of the NY Rising funds awarded to New Paltz have been earmarked to construct two new fire stations, one uptown will replace the current station at North Putt Corners and Henry W. Dubois Road, and another on Mountain Rest Road. across the Wallkill.
Building a new station across the river is necessary to provide emergency access to the western portion of the town. During Irene emergency services could not cross the Carmine Liberta Bridge, meaning that help from Gardiner and elsewhere needed to divert their services to western New Paltz.
In 2016 the EPA published a report title “What Climate Change Means for New York,” detailing the general effects of changing climate for the state.
New Paltz already receives more yearly precipitation than the national average.
“Average annual precipitation in the Northeast has increased 10 percent since 1895, and precipitation from extremely heavy storms has increased 70 percent since 1958. During the next century, annual precipitation and the frequency of heavy downpours are likely to keep rising. Precipitation is likely to increase during winter and spring, but not change significantly during summer and fall. Rising temperatures will melt snow earlier in the spring and increase evaporation, and thereby dry the soil during the summer and fall. As a result, changing the climate is likely to intensify flooding during winter and spring, and drought during summer and fall.”
As the climate changes the disparity between the precipitation received in New Paltz and the rest of the nation will only continue to grow.
What this means for New Paltz is that the 100 year FEMA floodplain is more like an 80 year floodplain.
“With a 100 year floodplain you have a one percent chance for a flood event every year. If storms become more frequent, and more intense, that one percent increases,” Arms, the building department head, explains. “FEMA uses lots of modeling and historical information to determine the floodplains, but they cannot account for everything.”
Neil Bettez agrees that the changing climate will have an impact on New Paltz, and that addressing it will take continued effort.
“As a society, we’ve picked the low-hanging fruit,” Bettez says. “It’s time to focus on the tougher, less attractive things, mainly infrastructure and enforcing building codes.”
