In a letter to New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos, Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara called on the Environmental Facilities Corporation to support funding for the City of Amsterdam through the state’s new Water Infrastructure Emergency Assistance Program. This year $10 million was dedicated for the new fund; an initiative Santabarbara played a key role in crafting following the emergency repairs needed to the sewer system in the City of Amsterdam last year.

Amsterdam will be the first municipality to apply for emergency funding through this new initiative. The funding is requested to expedite immediate repairs needed to the city’s infrastructure on Pershing Road. In the letter, Assemblyman Santabarbara noted that this section of the city’s sanitary sewer system has repeatedly failed over the years, leaving homes without service for extended periods of time, causing sewage to flood into people’s homes, property damage and the need for costly cleanups. He notes that Amsterdam Mayor Michael Villa also issued an emergency declaration identifying the sanitary sewer system on Pershing Road as a “threat to the public health, safety and welfare of its residents,” which was included in the city’s application for emergency funding.

The estimated cost of the emergency repairs is $560,000 and is currently being considered by the Environmental Facilities Corporation under the new program, which could expedite funding for repairs in as little as two days. “From my own background in civil engineering, I know how failing infrastructure can cause increasingly more damage over time, affect more people and make repairs more costly if not addressed immediately,” Santabarbara wrote to Commissioner Seggos. “As you know, we were forced to deal with a similar emergency repair to the city’s infrastructure on Forrest Avenue last summer,” Santabarbara added. “With that in mind, I ask that you support Amsterdam’s request for funding through this new initiative to help the affected residents in this area and make a smart investment in the future of this upstate city.”