Every week is infrastructure week –

No matter your thoughts about the science behind climate change, society’s culpability or the best policies in light of what we know, we can all agree that it’s nice to be able to get to and from your home.

As storms in the region continue to intensify, more roads will be damaged and more people will be impacted. The bridge through town doesn’t care about how much carbon in the atmosphere. It cares how much water it can pass under its span.

The latest round of torrential storms this summer – including some on July 11, one year to the date of similarly devastating storms in 2023 – continued to draw attention to one of the region’s most pressing challenges: how to respond to and recover from the growing risk of floods.

The storms and their damage can wipe away entire town budgets in a matter of hours, and it can sometimes take years to get reimbursed for recovery expenses from state and federal agencies.

Local leaders have been raising the challenges of preparing for storms and responding to their aftermath as they gather to discuss key issues they face. State officials initiated new studies that will highlight flood-prone areas and propose ways to reduce their risks. We’ll be keeping a close eye out for those studies next year.

Read the full story.

A coalition of nonprofits and government agencies helped to install a upsized culvert in Lewis, which will help pass larger water flows and improve fish habitat. Photo by Eric Teed.

What’s next?

Likely, more storms. It will be important to monitor how towns rebuild and the support they get from state and federal governments. Is the Adirondack Park getting its share of the state’s $4.2 billion environmental bond act?

How are communities bracing and planning for future storms? State-funded flood studies in the Ausable and Boquet watersheds should highlight some of those rivers’ most flood-prone areas and propose ways to reduce the risk.

But it will take significant leadership and work to make those plans real. How much of that starts in 2025?

Top photo: A washed-out culvert on Stevenson Road in Westport, across Stacy Brook which drains into Lake Champlain near Camp Dudley. Photo by Eric Teed. 

Zachary Matson

Zachary Matson has been an environmental reporter for the Explorer since October 2021. He is focused on the many issues impacting water and the people, plants and wildlife that rely on it in the Adirondack Park.
Zach worked at daily newspapers in Missouri, Arizona and New York for nearly a decade, most recently working as the education reporter for six years at the Daily Gazette in Schenectady.

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