Onondaga Creek
/ File photo
SYRACUSE -- Syracuse could lose out on more than a million dollars in federal money secured to improve Onondaga Creek.
Senator Charles Schumer (D, New York) says the money could be revoked by the end of the year if a plan isn't put in place to redirect the money.
Schumer had secured $1.9 million in federal money for the Creekwalk Project. So far, he says the city has spent only $700,000 on phase one of the project. Now, the federal government could take back the $1.2 million dollars remaining under the new "Use it or Lose it" rule put in place recently by the government.
"It's federal bureaucracy gone amuck because what would normally happen is the city would be allowed to use this to go into phase two of the Creekwalk and do these kind of mitigation projects," Schumer said. "But under 'Use it or Lose it', you need to reapply and so all the state and federal governments have to do is allow it."
Schumer is now calling on the federal and state Departments of Transportation to allow the city to keep the infrastructure funding. He wants the money to be directed to the removal of three abandoned Jefferson Railroad Bridges over the Creek and other improvements along the Creekwalk itself. Schumer says the projects will have a big impact on flood mitigation.
"The City of Syracuse stands at the ready to both finish the Creekwalk and get critical flood mitigation projects off the ground, and even has the unused money available to get the work done. These efforts would not only put federal funding to good use on job-creating infrastructure work in Syracuse, but would reduce flood risk and get about one-hundred homeowners off the costly flood maps," Schumer said.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) says the removal of just one of these bridges would take about 70 homeowners off of the 100 year flood maps. The funding could remove more than 100 homeowners from the FEMA flood maps.
