Glenn Gidaly, of the engineering firm Barton and Loguidice, appeared before the village board at last week's meeting to give an update on the village's Hazard Mitigation plan. Gidaly defined hazard mitigation as “any sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risks to human life and property.”

Gidaly and his firm worked for nearly 15 months as they researched and investigated what areas of the village would be most prone to natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, severe storms, and extreme temperatures. At the meeting, Gidaly provided a quote from Art Snyder, the Director of Ulster County Emergency Management, which said that over a ten-year period between 1996 and 2006, “Ulster County experienced more Emergency Declarations and Disaster Declarations, combined, than any other county in the State of New York.”

In a follow-up interview later that week, Gidaly explained the real-world benefits the Hazard Mitigation plan will have for the village and its residents.

“The idea was to analyze these hazards, and talk about past hazard events, and to talk about the actions that the village can take, the village government and its citizens, to lessen the impact of those hazards,” said Gidaly. “What can we do to prevent the significant impact that those have?”

Having a state and federally approved plan also makes Ellenville eligible for grant money to offset the costs of dealing with these hazards. So in addition to helping protect the lives and property of village residents, the funding may, in turn, help save taxpayers money by footing part of the bill. In fact, the village has already received a grant for their efforts as 80% of the study's $46,000 price tag was federally funded.

Gidaly elaborated on the process through which Ellenville will be able to receive that additional money to cope with natural hazards after our plan is approved.

“As soon as a disaster is declared anywhere in New York State, as a result of having its own plan certified by the federal government, the village will then be eligible to apply for funds to resolve some of the identified problems in this plan - even though the disaster I'm referring to did not take place in Ellenville.”

For example, if a winter storm in Albany is severe enough to cause the state to declare it a disaster, Albany receives assistance to deal with it, while any community with an approved hazard mitigation plan becomes eligible to apply for funding to pay for projects that are pre-identified in the plan. Currently, a disaster that strikes Ulster County allows Ellenville the opportunity to receive some funds, but having the approved plan will increase those kinds of opportunities.

“There's a number of low-lying areas that are flood-prone, where we need additional storm-drainage,” said Gidaly of some of our plan's pre-identified Hazard Mitigation projects. “There are areas around the wastewater treatment plant where we need a berm to be placed there to prevent water from flooding the plant - those kinds of issues.”

Barton and Loguidice worked with several officials, departments, and organizations, and worked particularly closely with village and town assessor Mike Summers, who along with his office, Gidaly made sure to point out, was very helpful in identifying the value of properties within the identified flood areas.

The plan was submitted to the state for comments last Wednesday, and Gidaly hopes that it will be finalized and fully-approved by mid-March.

“This is an example of the village being proactive,” said Gidaly. “I don't believe there's another municipality in the whole county that has done this yet. Just as the village has been very proactive in going after grants and trying to revitalize the village, they also went and competed for the grant funds to begin with to do the plan. The village should really be commended for taking that step.”

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