After suffering from the devastating effects of storms and floods back in 2005, residents who live on Carlo Drive in the town of Wawarsing are getting worried about facing another soak. Residents Arthur Keener and Pete and Pat Meoli appeared at the town board meeting on February 7 to ask the board for help regarding the blocked-up creeks around Carlo Drive that contribute to the flooding of the area.

"Whenever we get drenching rains, we don't rest too easy," said former EHS phys-ed teacher Pete Meoli. "Not since the '05 flood. We constantly watch the stream that surrounds us, it goes around our entire development here. That's what we've been trying to get the town to come in and clean out. They have to dredge it because it's so overgrown with trees."

"It cost [our development] out of our own pockets $1.6 million in damages, with our homes and everything that we lost," says Meoli of the floods in 2005. "My entire basement was lost — I had seven feet of water in my basement."

The town has been slow to aid the Carlo Drive residents not because they don't want to help, but more because they can't: it's illegal for the town to go and do work on private property. Town councilman Tom Geelan explains the problem further.

"Let's say if they go to your house and fix your problem, but I live in Cragsmoor, I've got flooding, and I want the town to come to my house — so why are you better than me? We both pay town taxes," says Geelan. "[The town] can't do that. You can't use the town's equipment for private people, it's meant for everybody."

According to William Collier, the town's attorney, there isn't much the town can do because of the private property aspect. However, the town was supposed to have sent out letters of easement to the area's residents, which would permit town officials and town-hired engineers onto the properties. When Keener and the Meolis attended the last town board meeting, they said that no one in their development had reported receiving such letters.

Once engineers are able to take a look at the area, Collier says that one possibility is the creation of a drainage district, though such a move would still cost the area's residents money.

"If it's a large project, then the town would probably have to seek to create a district, and the only way to create a district is the residents in that area would have to go along with it," says Collier. "If it's cutting one log and moving it, then there's no need to create a district. If it's spending a million dollars to create a drainage system, then someone's got to pay for that."

Even if the town is able to dredge the creeks that concern Pete Meoli, Carlo Drive's flooding problem may not be fixed. John O'Rourke of Lanc & Tully, the engineering firm that often does work for the town of Wawarsing, directed the Ellenville Journal to a May 2007 report by Kathleen Capella, a District Conservationist with the United States Department of Agriculture. In the report, Capella discusses removing brush from the creeks, writing, "brush removal is a maintenance operation that has been successful in other parts of the town in the past and may help to alleviate the more frequent, lower volume storms, not the larger storms which have caused the majority of the damage in the area."

Capella's report also mentions the benefits of a drainage district in the area, and cleaning and maintaining the stormwater system with a catchbasin "vacuum" machine that has been used in the New York City watershed area that could be beneficial if made available countywide, though neither of these suggestions seem to boast a cure-all for Carlo Drive. Until that all-encompassing solution is found, residents wisely remain ready for more wet winter and spring weather.

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