ROCHESTER (WXXI) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is calling for a federal agency to take emergency action to help residents along the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River shorelines deal with flooding problems.
Cuomo has written to a regional official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, following up on the historic flooding that damaged homes and businesses along Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River last year.
The governor says residents can’t be left to suffer another year of damaging floods with no additional protection. In Cuomo’s letter to the Army Corps official, he identifies several sites in counties that include Monroe, Orleans and Wayne, which the governor says represent at-risk areas.
Cuomo says the state has already allocated more than 67 million dollars to protect New Yorkers and taken other steps, but he says the state’s resources are not inexhaustible.
The governor says he will work with the New York Congressional Delegation to help the Army Corps of engineers do a comprehensive assessment of how to protect the shoreline, and he has also directed state agencies to develop strategies that would allow the International Joint Commission to more effectively manage high water levels.