— — First Ward Alderman Russ Rizzo was beaming on Friday as the Witmer Road flooding issue has moved closer to a resolution following years of effort to abate the problem.

Since 2000, Rizzo said he’s been involved in trying to solve the dilemma that has left approximately 20 homes in North Tonawanda along the road with bouts of flooding. Niagara County built a dump near the residential neighborhood in the late 1960s, then capped it in clay in the mid 1990s, which caused massive amounts of water to be diverted into the backyards and basements of homeowners living on the south side of it.

The city council has approved a $42,500 engineering design fee to begin to remediate the sporadic inundations on the south side of the landfill, which will eventually use culverts and drainage lines to redirect the water.

The Town of Wheatfield, which has residents experiencing similar flooding issues on the north side of the dump, approved remediation on Monday and is already slated to begin work this spring. The town will pay North Tonawanda $50,000 to run piping through a new housing area and across Niagara Falls Boulevard, then tie into a drainage line already in place in the city that leads out to River Road.  

Niagara County will also contribute $50,000 a year for five years to the city or until the cost to complete the project is reached, Rizzo said, due to the fact that originally estimates for the project came in at $335,000 and could be considerably less after engineer Dale Marshall managed to bring costs down.  

“Whatever we do not spend we’ll take out of that $250,000,” Rizzo said.  

While Marshall couldn’t be reached by telephone on Friday, Rizzo said there are still other factors that need to be worked out before the project moves forward, including state and federal oversight on nearby wetlands, though he hopes that crews will begin work as winter subsides.

“What we have to get through yet, is to show the EPA and DEC that us piping water through the wetlands won’t harm them,” he said. “When that water reaches a certain level it will be running through our piping and ditching and out to the river.”

The newly elected alderman and former county legislator said he visited some of the homes along the city’s thoroughfare earlier this week after warm weather melted recent snow followed by steady rains.

“The water wasn’t just filling their yards, it was all the way up to their back doors,” he said.

That problem will soon be resolved, Rizzo said, though an exact timetable is pending on plans from an outside engineering firm.  

“It’s a long-standing issue these people had to deal with,” Second Ward Alderman Rich Andres said. “We have a lot of low areas in this city and of all the low areas the Witmer area is the worst.”