State Sen. Jack Martins recently sent a letter to Bruce Terrace residents in Mineola to give them an update on the $5 million drainage project intended to relieve recurrent flooding in the area.
The Aug. 24 letter followed a meeting Martins held earlier that week with Village of Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss, Nassau County Legislator Richard Nicolello, representatives of the Town of North Hempstead and design professionals to determine the status of the project that involves the county, the town and the Village of Mineola.
The meeting came on the heels of a rainstorm on Aug. 15 that had again caused flooding to residents of Bruce Terrace and the surrounding area.
“The commitment in money and resources by the village, county and town is, and has been, significant,” Martins wrote. “The effort to develop a design that would accommodate the volume of water in the areas available for water collection also has been a challenge. But it is done.”
Martins said engineers have redesigned the Bruce Terrace storm water drainage system to increase capacity and also revamped the village’s catch basin to handle an increased volume of water from Bruce Terrace and the interceptor pipe to be installed on Sheridan Boulevard by the county. More than 1,700 feet of 36-inch or 48-inch interceptor pipe on Sheridan Boulevard will cross Westbury Avenue and enter the Mineola catch basin.
The project will be awarded in October or November with construction slated to start in November.
Work on a wall that will split in two an existing drainage basin to partially relieve the recurrent flooding on Bruce Terrace started in April.
The village, the town and Nassau County each received $800,000 in state grant funds for their respective segments of the flood relief project. Martins restored the $2.4 million in funding last year after the original grant, which was secured by the Town of North Hempstead through then-state Sen. Craig Johnson, was left in limbo after Johnson lost his seat to Martins in the 2010 election.
The county’s and village’s portion of the project will cost $1.7 million. The total cost for the town’s portion of the project is $1.1 million.
In his letter, Martins said the county is finalizing its plans and planning to put out its bid on the project in the early fall.
The town sent the village a draft license agreement for use of the property in Mineola early last month. The agreement is under review, Martins said, with bidding to occur sometime this month and bids to be received next month.
Bids will subsequently be awarded with the start of construction expected in November.
