09/08/10 Frustrated Pemberwick residents question officials over flooding

By the banks of the Byram River Wednesday morning, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes faced about 20 Pemberwick residents skeptical that anything will ever be done to alleviate flooding of their homes.

"I just want you to know that before anything is done I will be dead and buried," said John Stein, 79, who has lived at 101 Monica Road since 1955.

During a meeting with residents and town and federal officials, Himes told residents about the progress of a funding proposal in Congress that would provide the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with as much as $200,000 for a study on how to control flooding along the Byram River.

After the meeting, Stein said he wanted action, not a paper trail.

"How many damn studies do we have to have? Just come along and dig the river deeper and get the silt out of there," he said.

Himes was joined by First Selectman Peter Tesei, state Rep. Livvy Floren, R-149th District, and Eugene Brickman, deputy chief, planning division for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' New York District.

At one point in his comments to the group, which included members of the town's Flood and Erosion Control Board among about 20 officials, Brickman said that during floods water has risen to six inches above ground level and inundated homes.

That drew some heckling from Lee Frenz.

"Six inches? It was five feet high coming into my home," she said, interrupting Brickman.

Frenz lives at 32 Hollow Wood Lane, a street that runs parallel to the Byram River. Frenz said repeated promises of action have brought no help to residents.......

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