When Alexander Highway crews hit the road Thursday morning they noticed some flooding in the fields around the Tonawanda Creek in the area of Railroad avenue and Stroh road.
That’s when Alexander Town Highway Superintendent Tom Lowe checked the usual trouble spots on the Tonawanda Creek, three log jammed areas, two north of Broadway road and the most visible log jam, north of the Stroh road bridge.
Upon arrival on Stroh road, highway crews noticed a large ice jam had developed overnight after the heavy rains and snow melt on Wednesday. The ice jam clogged one side of the log jammed area causing water levels to rise on the Tonawanda and the creek to overflow its banks and push the water into farmer’s fields.
Lowe says he was a bit nervous about the high levels of water and advised the Attica Highway Department to inform businesses along Prospect street in Attica that they may want to think about possibly using sandbags to protect their businesses.
Lowe and the Attica Highway Department monitored the creek all morning and as of about 11:30a.m. the water started to recede.
Lowe says he was also monitoring a log jam area close to the Alexander Town Highway garage on Railroad avenue after the truck garage was flooded last January at this time.
The Town of Alexander has been looking into removing the three problem log jams in the Tonawanda creek, but have not been able to secure the grant money needed to tackle all three log jams at once.
Lowe says taking care of one jam and not the others at the same time could cause other areas to flood as water will do what it wants to, says Lowe.
According to Lowe, the state sees the problem as a maintenance issue not an emergency. The log jams have been a problem for some time. Lowe says the Town has approached several local politicians , but since the change over in Albany this year with Democrats in control, Lowe does not believe a strong Republican area like Genesee County will get much assistance from the state, and with the federal government currently shut down there is no grant funding available to help Alexander mitigate the log jam issue.
In their July meeting, the Town Board passed a resolution to allow Supervisor Joe Higley to research other avenues of revenue to clear the log jams.
In the meantime, Lowe is hoping that mother nature will cooperate. Avoiding quick snow melts and heavy rains along with sudden warm temperatures will make life easier for the Town of Alexander.
Is that a beaver dam?