Pleasantville Looks to Accelerate Flooding Solutions

A series of recent meetings and efforts to solve short-term and long-term effects of the Saw Mill River's flooding onto the adjacent parkway may soon yield results, according to Pleasantville Mayor Peter Scherer.

"We have obviously been through a month where [flooding] has happened multiple times—lots of wet weather, an extraordinary amount of inconvenience produced not only to residents here in Pleasantville, but throughout Westchester," he stated at the Board of Trustees' June 27 meeting.

Scherer revealed he and Village Administrator Patricia Dwyer recently met with a group of county representatives to address the recent slew of rainstorms that have led to flooding on the Saw Mill River Parkway and traffic back-ups in the village.

"I think we are all on the same page," he said. "Our next effort is to convene a similar meeting with that cast of characters, but to include the Region 8 adminstratiors for the New York State Department of Transportation."

Also on June 27, Westchester County's Saw Mill Watershed Advisory Board met and discussed similar issues.

"The Saw Mill was closed numerous times during [the recent] rainstorms," Town of Mount Pleasant Engineer David Smyth shared with the board. "I remember seeing that the Saw Mill was closed when the two other watershed areas, the Bronx River Parkway and the Hutch, weren’t closed."

Dwyer, at the meeting, reiterated Pleasantville's need for "just some basic assistance."

"Some alternate route signs and some maintenance along the riverbed," she said were requests put it in more than a year-and-a-half ago.

"And we got nothing."

Westchester County Legislator MaryJane Shimsky (D—Hastings-on-Hudson), who chairs the board, noted, "That's not really dealing with the problem of the flooding and so on at all, but local governments need us to assist them with coping until such a time a solution may be found."

In a statement Monday, Shimsky said she is looking "for a change to existing stormwater legislation to allow approved capital projects to alleviate flooding to move forward without municipalities first being required to match fifty percent (50%) of the project cost."

She outlined a flood mitigation plan that also includes debris removal efforts and dredging, installing gauges to pinpoint areas prone to flooding and the possible creation of an Office of Storm Water Management.

"This centralized sub-agency of sorts could act as an important resource to municipalities while also serving to prioritize mitigation efforts," Shimsky explained. 

Scherer also asserted "long-term" relief is also needed.

"Clearly this problem has gone on long enough and has now been exacerbated by the point that it is not only a once-in-a-while problem," he stated.

According to Scherer, Pleasantville residents have also been rallying to reach out to state officials and Region 8 of the New York State Department of Transportation for solutions.

"I applaud that effort as well," he said. "The more voices the better."