City OKs spending for easements

The work is to obtain easements on properties along the Tannery Brook drainage system.

KINGSTON, N.Y. » The city will spend up to $6,500 on work to obtain easements on private properties along the Tannery Brook drainage system where improvements will need to be made in the future.

The Common Council on Tuesday adopted a resolution authorizing $6,500 be taken from the city’s contingency fund to pay for the survey of properties so the city can obtain eight easements. The easements will provide the city with access to areas where work needs to be done along the Tannery Brook.

The Tannery Brook partly runs through private property between Washington Avenue and Warren Street, leading to the need for the easements, city Engineer Ralph Swenson has said.

In a letter to Common Council President James Noble, Swenson said the Tannery Brook is an important drainage conduit that serves a large portion of the city.

“Improvements to the channel have been made over the years to improve channel capacity in conjunction with needed sanitary sewer improvements and stand-alone flooding abatement efforts,” Swenson wrote. “There remain two unimproved segments of the Tannery Brook, the portion between Washington Avenue and Warren Street, and that portion upstream of Hewitt to the Linderman Avenue crossing.” He said the city is focused on the portion between Washington Avenue and Warren Street currently because that area is prone to flooding due to lack of hydraulic capacity and it is the sole remaining length of the Tannery Brook Sanitary Sewer that is still unimproved.

Swenson has also said he would apply for a state grant of approximately $500,000 to pay for the actual improvement work that is needed in the drainage system.