State points to 1958 agreement in denying fund to halt annual flooding

By DENISE A. RAYMO

MALONE -- Two agreements -- including one drawn up 50 years ago -- could condemn Town of Malone residents to pay for Salmon River dredging along Lower Park Street.

Federal lawmakers will be urged to step in and pressure hydroelectric-dam owner Brookfield Power to comply with its cleanup obligations on the upper portion of the river.

But even if some hope emerges there, it will be eight to 10 years before work could begin on the southern portion of the Salmon, where at least seven homes are endangered by flooding every year.

And there is no guarantee that after years of federal study, permitting and preparation, the remediation plan for the river would be approved and funded by all of the stakeholder agencies.

OLD PACT

The state says a 1958 agreement it had with the town and village makes river cleanup the municipality's responsibility. The pact is good "in perpetuity," the state says, so New York won't pay for any dredging or cleanup.

The town also has to prove -- through what could be costly soil and other testing -- where the built-up sedimentation originated from before it can approach the suspected entity, National Grid, for compensation.

All of these revelations were presented to Town Council members Thursday by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials and representatives from the State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Previous inspections by the federal agency found deficiencies all along the river's path where silt and shoals have choked off the current to a near standstill.

For the first time last fall, a majority of the problem was linked to the 1997 release of tons of built-up sediment from the Chasm Falls hydroelectric dam then owned by Niagara Mohawk.

But Robert Remmers, who is in charge of the Buffalo office of the Corps of Engineers, said that responsibility has not been established as fact.

He said the town has to prove that the release was the cause of the sediment problems that have surfaced since then along the Salmon.

Water depths once measured at 17 to 22 feet but have been reduced to as little as six inches in some places.