Town Officials Seek State, Federal Help With Constant Rte 59 Flooding

WEST NYACK, NY — Flooding has been a problem on Route 59 since it was a dirt road known as the Nyack Turnpike.

But while it used to happen every couple of years, it happened eight times in 2023, and already once in 2024.

(And another two inches of rain are due this weekend, with widespread flooding likely near rivers and poor drainage areas in Rockland County, according to the National Weather Service.)

"I come down here every storm," Clarkstown Town Supervisor George Hoehmann said during a news conference in the middle of a still slightly covered road on Thursday. "The water this last time was above the guard rail. You can imagine how dangerous that is."

Town officials are calling on New York State and the federal government to take steps for both short-term and long-term solutions to the problem.

It was $5 million in federal money that made it possible for Clarkstown to do the Klein Avenue Levee project, completed in 2021 to protect that neighborhood against Hackensack River flooding.

Federal money to protect the Jeffrey Court neighborhood, also a victim of Hackensack River flooding, is now making its way through Congress, Hoehmann said.

But the town can't do anything about Route 59, which is a state road. It's a top traffic artery for the county, with 45,000 vehicles a day. And now that it is flooded out routinely, it is the local emergency responders who are rescuing people from cars in every storm, the local police who have to staff the roadblocks, local ambulances finding detours to get to the county's two hospitals, local businesses suffering damage and loss of customers and 45,000 vehicle trips pushed onto local roads.

State Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski said a search through local libraries turns up references to flooding going back 100 years. The current trouble, he said, is a combination of stronger and stronger storms and more and more development. "Each exacerbates the other."

Town officials have enlisted the help of their state lawmakers to put pressure on the NY Department of Transportation, and conversations have begun, Hoehmann said at the news conference.

"While one or two every couple of years were unacceptable, it's now every single rainstorm, and we have to find a solution," he said. "We don't need a band-aid fix, we need a long term solution. It's going to take a multi-pronged approach."

Town officials want the state to come up with a fix for Route 59 and Route 303, and develop a plan in concert with the federal government and the state of New Jersey to address the Hackensack River. The Army Corps of Engineers, CSX and Veolia will all also have to be part of the planning.

Requested:

• State to take the lead in a multi-agency task force approach to solve this problem. Only the state can take this action since it is a state road.
• Army Corp. of Engineers to dredge the Hackensack River.
• State to add drainage basin capacity in areas impacted by the flooding.
• State to increase culvert capacity on Route 303 that is causing the issues on Rt. 59.
• Replacing/Repairing CSX bridge that serves as a choke point for water causing more flooding.

"It's going to cost a lot of money," State Sen. Bill Weber acknowledged.

The town has recent data to contribute. In 2013 Clarkstown hired Brooker Engineering PLLC of Suffern to perform a hydrologic and hydraulic analysis of the Hackensack River Basin tributary in West Nyack.

SEE: Final Round Of Federal Funding As Flood Relief Project To Begin