Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Greece Town Supervisor takes shoreline leaders on a tour along Edgemere

Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich & newest member of the International Lake Ontario / St. Lawrence River board, Diane Kuehn
Caitlin Whyte
/
WXXI News
Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich & newest member of the International Lake Ontario / St. Lawrence River board, Diane Kuehn

Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich gave a tour to lakeshore leaders from northern New York along Lake Ontario.

The group included a representative from the International Lake Ontario / St. Lawrence River board as well as a community group United Shoreline, which helps residents understand information about plan 2014 and its impact.

Tim Smith is with United Shoreline, one of two people who run it.

"We were residents, just simple residents on the shoreline who took a positive action to try to resolve the issue, make sure our neighbors were involved, provide the grant papers for them because they were intimidated by the papers and give that information to all the people and try to bond together to resolve this issue.

Diane Kuehn is the newest member of the International Lake Ontario / St. Lawrence River board. Kuehn is also a professor at SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse

"I’m hoping to learn a little bit more about what actually happened here with the flooding, so I’m here to listen and learn."

That group meets twice a year and also reports to the IJC twice a year.

Supervisor Reilich said they’re trying to make sure what happened last year doesn’t happen again or at least to a lesser degree.

Goodwin Park in Greece
Credit Caitlin Whyte / WXXI News
/
WXXI News
Goodwin Park in Greece

"Our community is not built with a bunch of high end homes on the lake shore. these are middle class people that have small homes, small lots, and don’t have resources of hundreds of thousands of dollars in many cases, and certainly 50 to 100 in almost all cases sitting around to be invested, not knowing that if next year or the year after they’re going to have to do this again."

Reilich says IJC could have handled things differently to lessen damage that occurred, asking for them to be more responsive to town and resident concerns.

While many along the shoreline have blamed Plan 2014 for contributing to last year's flooding, most members of the IJC say the flooding was largely due to excessive precipitation in 2017.