MAMARONECK, New York, July 6, 2008 (ENS) – A new federal, state and local initiative is underway to develop a plan of action to reduce the storm damage on the Mamaroneck and Sheldrake rivers, especially in the Village of Mamaroneck, Westchester County.

The floods of April 2007 were devastating in Mamaroneck, a suburb that fronts onto Long Island Sound.

Westchester County as a whole has experienced a greater number of storms and many of these with greater overall intensity in the recent past. There has been an approximate 10 percent rise in flows over the past 20 years, state and local officials report.

The increased number and intensity of storms, combined with historic patterns of development that have encroached natural floodways, with more flooding and damage throughout Westchester County.

Congresswoman Nita Lowey of New York; Commissioner Pete Grannis of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; Westchester County Executive Andy Spano; State Senator Suzi Oppenheimer; and Assemblyman George Latimer gathered on June 20 to announce that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will conduct an evaluation of the hydrologic, environmental, and economic factors present in the area.

The report will examine flood damage reduction opportunities including channel modification, levees, floodwalls, detention, diversion, as well as non-structural measures such as flood-proofing, floodplain connection and stream restoration.

“Since the floods of 2007, we have made steady progress in developing federal, state, and local cooperation to determine the causes of regional flooding and implement solutions,” Congresswoman Lowey said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency
Administrator David Paulison at
microphones, U.S. Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton at Paulison’s right,
Representative Nita Lowey at
Paulison’s left, and local leaders at
a press conference after
Mamaroneck flooding. April 2008.
(Photo by Kim Anderson
courtesy FEMA)

“I am pleased that this study will commence and that we are a step closer to mitigation projects that will prevent damage in the future. I will continue to work with all stakeholders to protect Westchester County residents and business-owners,” she said.

“The floods of 2007 were just the most recent of the flooding that seems to continue to grow in severity, causing substantial environmental and economic impacts,” Commissioner Grannis said.

“Congresswoman Lowey approached DEC to get support for this important evaluation and we agreed that it is a high priority,” Grannis said.

“She is to be commended for her efforts to assure funding for the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct this study and for the continued partnership of the Army Corps, New York State and Westchester County as this project moves forward,” he said.

The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the study to identify a recommended plan will take approximately 30 months after it signs the partnership agreement with DEC.

Col. Nello Tortora, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers’ New York District said, “We look forward to a cooperative partnership with the DEC and Westchester County. This is a significant step towards bringing solutions to the water resources problems within the Mamaroneck and Sheldrake Rivers Basin, specifically in the Village of Mamaroneck.”

“The communities in the Long Island Sound area were among the most devastated in the storms of April 2007,” said Spano.

“The increased number and intensity of storms we have all been experiencing is a wake-up call for every level of government to work together to minimize the impacts of such storms on all our residents,” the Westchester County executive said.

“This project dovetails perfectly with the types of projects we are attempting to undertake with municipalities throughout Westchester County using the $10 million a year that we put into the county’s capital budget for flood mitigation,” said Spano, praising the congresswoman as “a true ally in working to address this problem and in finding funds, not just for more study, but for real solutions.”

A preliminary study conducted by the Corps over 30 years ago sought to determine the potential for flood damage in the Mamaroneck/Sheldrake Basin and how to prevent it. The recommendations were never implemented.

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ST. PAUL, Minnesota, June 4, 2008 (ENS) – The Democratic primary season officially ended Tuesday night as Senator Barack Obama declared victory before a jubilant crowd of some 17,000 at a rally at the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul.

“This is America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past,” the Illinois senator told cheering supporters. “Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.”

Senator Barack Obama and his wife,
Michelle, applaud supporters in
St. Paul, Minnesota. June 3, 2008.
(Photo by Salvador García Bardon)

Obama acknowledged the accomplishments of his rival, Senator Hillary Clinton as he became the first black candidate in the nation’s history to be the presidential nominee of a major political party.

“You can rest assured that when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country, she will be central to that victory,” he said. “When we transform our energy policy and lift our children out of poverty, it will be because she worked to help make it happen.”

Obama said, “Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Obama and Clinton have had their differences during this long primary campaign, but tonight they each said that the ways America uses energy will have to change in the near future.

“Change is building an economy that rewards not just wealth, but the work and workers who created it,” said Obama, as he advocated “investing in our crumbling infrastructure, and transforming how we use energy, and improving our schools, and renewing our commitment to science and innovation.”

Speaking in her home state of New York, Clinton acknowledged the strength of her opponent, and then she highlighted similar issues when explaining “what Hillary wants.”

“I want an economy that works for all families,” she said. “That’s why I have been fighting to create millions of new jobs in clean energy and rebuilding our infrastructure, jobs to come to all of our states and urban and rural areas and suburban communities and small towns.”

Turning his attention to his next opponent, Obama deflected the critique of Republican presumptive nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona that he has not been to Iraq recently enough.

Instead, Obama said, it is McCain who would better understand the kind of change Americans want if he visited more places at home in America.

“Maybe if he went to Pennsylvania and met the man who lost his job but can’t even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one, he’d understand that we can’t afford four more years of our addiction to oil from dictators,” Obama said.

“That man needs us to pass an energy policy that works with automakers to raise fuel standards, and makes corporations pay for their pollution, and oil companies invest their record profits in a clean energy future – an energy policy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced,” he said. “That’s the change we need.”

In New York, Clinton had a parallel message – the Bush years have left Americans impoverished.

Senator Hillary Clinton makes her way through
a crowd of supporters. June 3, 2008
(Photo credit unknown)

“For the past seven years, so many people in this country have felt invisible, like your president didn’t even really see you,” she said.

Then Clinton too sketched a picture of an energy-smart future that she says could replace today’s tough economy.

“I have seen the shuttered factories, the jobs shipped overseas, the families struggling to afford gas and groceries,” she said, “but I’ve also seen unions retraining workers to build energy efficient buildings, innovators designing cars that run on fuel cells and bio-fuels and electricity, cars that get more miles per gallon than ever before, cars that will cut the cost of driving, reduce our reliance on foreign oil and fight global warming.”

Speaking in Minneapolis from the Xcel Energy Center, the same building where the Republican National Convention will happen in September, Obama said, “The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.”

In concluding, Obama presented his vision of what the future might hold and expressed confidence that both the economy and the environment could be healed.

“Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it,” he said, “then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.

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