Pelham Village Gets $340,000 to Fix Flooding at Glenwood Lake

Pelham village officials hope to have a new stormwater drainage system in place for Glenwood Lake next year thanks to a $340,000 matching grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The village board announced that it got the grant during Tuesday’s board meeting. The federal grant will take care of 55 percent of the estimated project cost. The village will be responsible for the other 45 percent, which amounts to a little under $280,000.

Yamuder said the new system will carry runoff underground from Glenwood Lake, near the New Rochelle border, to the Hutchinson River.

“That’s a really big deal,” Trustee Joseph Marty said during the meeting. “In the midst of all this rain, we jut got a third of a million dollars from the federal government to fix some of our old flooding problems...we have to come up with matching funds, but it’s a real winner.”

Robert Yamuder, the village administrator, said the the initial grant application was filed in 2009.  U.S. Rep Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, informed the village about the grant during Tropical Storm Irene, according to Yamuder.

The first leg of the project is to install a 72-inch outlet at 3rd Street and the Hutchinson River Parkway.

“It’s a good thing, because the Hutch is actually much lower — even when it was flowing full during the storm that we had,” Yamuder said.

Yamuder said he did not have a schedule in place for the project, but hoped to have it completed within a year.

Other village board news

• Yamuder said the village plans to apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for reimbursement of expenses that accrued during Tropical Storm Irene.

“Now we have to do some paperwork and try to get some money back for all the overtime and equipment,” Yamuder said.

Yamuder said he will be compiling all storm related expenses next week.

• The village also announced that it paid a $25,000 fine to the state Public Employee Safety & Health Bureau. Yamuder said the violations have all been resolved and a safety committee has been set up to make sure that potential work place violations are caught and addressed in the future.

The Public Employee Safety & Health Bureau oversees occupational safety and health protection for all public sector employees. 

Yamuder said violations included failing to properly document firefighter training and not having sexual harassment in the workplace program in place. Yamuder said paying the fine is a less expensive option than appealing the bureaus decision.

"An appeal would cost us more over time, because of the legal costs," Yamuder said.