News from 2004
Citizens for a Green North Tonawanda
"Until they fix this, I'm going to sit here and keep complaining and I'm going to steer everyone away who wants to come live in North Tonawanda in areas like this," she said.
Kaszubski said she has been dealing with a flooded yard for ten years. After Friday night and Saturday morning's heavy downpours, she is sloshing around in water above her ankles in her backyard.
"It's not getting better," Kaszubski said. "The city's sewers aren't big enough to handle rain and yet they won't do anything about it."
North Tonawanda's engineer and the Mayor declined to comment Saturday night, but in recent reports, engineer Dale Marshall said the problem comes down to grass clogging a drain pipe in the yard next to Kaszubski's property on Fairfield Drive.
Neighbor Guy Gregoire lives nearby on Birch Drive.
"You can smell the sewer out here when it backs up," he said. "I don't think it's what the city is saying, grass clippings from people's yards."
Some neighbors blame nearby housing development.
Kaszubski, who is a geologist, said it is on former wetlands.
It's man, not Mother Nature they blame for the flooding, and they add their concerns to city officials are just going down the drain.
�It's knee deep where she's standing,� said Kaszubski. �It's about six or seven inches throughout a lot of the yard.�
And these water logged lawns have been a problem for a while. Residents are fed up. They want the water to stay down and they have their position as to what's washing out their backyards.
�The sewers are not big enough to handle all the water and water backflows out of the sewers,� said Kaszubski.
It's the combination of an old system with new homes built in the area. 7 News spoke with city engineers. They say they've been out in the area and checked out the problem. Their findings? The floods are not the city's fault. Residents are finding flaws with that response.
�You don't get seven inches of water on your lawn from a one or two inch rain event,� said Kaszubski. �It has to be coming out of the sewers and we have videotape of it doing so.�
The city engineer we spoke to by phone would not say when or if crews would be back out here. But, it's clear these neighbors will keep on city hall to get this flooding mess cleared up.
"NT flooding a sign of a much larger problem"
Excerpts from the Tonawanda News editorial board's excellent "Our View" - March 29, 2004
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature. In fact, it catches up to you after a while.
Unfortunately for many residents of North Tonawanda, Mother Nature is reacting with a vengeance. We're not talking about the weather, either.
We're talking about the problems with flooding that many parts of the city are facing, especially the poor residents of Witmer Road.
While we can't point to any one single action that caused the problem, it's obvious our lack of overall planning-- inside the city and beyond -- is the main culprit.
Too often, developers are allowed to build on wetlands. Others are allowed to disturb the natural flow of water.
Our municipalities don't plan well or closely monitor the effect projects have on nature. This certainly isn't limited to the Lumber City. Many of the homes in Amherst have been sinking for years, because of foolish decisions to build in places that should have been left empty. We have a history of environmental stupidity.
If you doubt that, take a drive north and remember that Western New York is the place that gave the world Love Canal, one of the saddest cases of manmade disaster in American History.
As a region, we seem to have a general disdain for nature, which is horrible, when you consider the natural wonders we're blessed with in our back yard. Too often, we've taken a blessing and turned it into a curse.
All of this leaves us searching for the answer to this painful question: When are we ever going to learn from our mistakes?
Finally... one of the culprits is caught....
"NT man arrested for doe's
death"
March 24,
2004
A North Tonawanda man will
think twice the next time he sees a deer. Police arrested John J.
Sherry Tuesday morning after he reportedly used a bow and arrow to kill a deer
in his back yard (in North Tonawanda) and dumped the carcass in a Pendleton
field.
"He's had a lot of bad luck,"
State Police Trooper William Fish said of the bizarre series of events that led
to Sherry's arrest.
Sherry noticed two deer in
the back yard of his Sweeney Street apartment around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. He
hurried to his bedroom and grabbed a bow and arrow before heading outside.
The
19-year-old fired the arrow at the closer deer, a doe, standing about 20 feet
away and struck it in the head, troopers said. "The deer dropped instantly
to the ground," Fish said. "Sherry then started to completely freak
out."
Sherry went inside his
apartment for about 15 minutes before checking out the deer he had hit. He then
dragged the body next to some garbage cans near the apartment and tossed a
blanket over it. Sherry went back inside and tried sleeping, but his
actions haunted him, according to troopers.
Around 4 a.m., Sherry and his
roommate grabbed the carcass and dragged it through their kitchen and into the
bathroom. The deer was then put into the bathtub, where Sherry allegedly used a
knife to cut the deer's hindquarters off for meat.
He finished carving the deer
and went back to bed, but the carcass soon emanated a foul odor.
Sherry
loaded the deer into his roommate's pickup truck and went to Feigle Road in
Pendleton, where he drove onto a utility road designated for power company
vehicles to access power lines. There, he disposed of the deer and went to leave, but
the truck got stuck.
A nearby resident spotted the
pickup and called police. Fish responded to the access road for a report of
possible dumping and a stuck vehicle. When he pulled up, Fish
immediately noticed blood on Sherry's clothes. Sherry quickly informed Fish it
was blood from a deer and directed him to where he stashed the carcass.
"I felt
quite relieved it was a deer," Fish said.
Sherry first told police he
hit the deer with a vehicle, but later confessed when Department of
Environmental Conservation officer James Rogers determined the injuries weren't
consistent. He found an entrance wound in the doe's head.
Sherry, 1862 Sweeney St.,
North Tonawanda, was charged with trespassing, illegally taking a deer during
closed season, discharging a bow within 500 feet of a dwelling and transporting
a deer without a tag.
Contact David Winters at 282-2311,
Ext. 2257, or [email protected]
"Little relief seen for Witmer"
Excerpts from a Tonawanda News article by Sean P. O'Neil - March 22, 2004
The last thing Witmer Road
residents wanted to see this week was snow. But that's exactly what fell
from the sky. They don't mind the snow, but rather what happens when
it melts. For the past decade, residents along the North Tonawanda street that
borders Wheatfield have complained that flooding is ruining their back yards.
Last
year, they demonstrated how bad the problem gets by floating a canoe in the
middle of 1 yard.
Promises have been made,
letters have been sent and replied to, but as of yet, there are no answers for an increasingly frustrated group. Calling their cause "Witmer in Need," residents
are not looking forward to this spring's thaw, which turns many yards into
ponds. Water from melted snow is just the tip of the iceberg
for this problem plaguing the neighborhood. Blame has been placed on the
adjacent Niagara County Refuse Site in Wheatfield. The wetland, which was
supposed to run off into a nearby creek, instead drains into Witmer
yards.
Melissa Malwhinney said pleas
from her and her neighbors for help have fallen on deaf ears for years. Instead
of trying to find a solution, officials want to play the blame game, with
Niagara County, Wheatfield and North Tonawanda all trying to wash their hands of
responsibility, she said. "We're back to everyone pointing fingers again," she
said. "It makes you have a lack of respect for city officials. It's not just
disheartening, but it's worse than that. It makes you lose faith in city
officials."
No matter how expensive it
may be, Malwhinney believes it's time to build the northwest storm sewer.
"Even if
they did it the cheap way, it would solve the problem," she said. "To me, when
you look at this, it's so obvious."
"I just can't understand why
they say they don't have the money when they're pulling money for other
projects," Malwhinney said. "We don't want to get rid of the wetlands, we want
them to take care of what needs to be taken care of."
Contact Sean P. O'Neil at 693-1000, Ext. 117, or [email protected].
Saving green space can save taxpayers money. Check out articles about saving open space.
Learn why homes should never be built in hydric (wetland) soils in the incredible sinking suburb of Amherst.
Learn about some homes that were built in hydric (wetland) soils in North Tonawanda.
View our News Archives for 2003 that includes information about wetlands violations in North Tonawanda, 2002 News, 2001 News, 2000 News, 1999 News, 1998 News, and 1997 News.
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