2020 Stormwater Management Program annual report on Garvies Point Road approved

This is Part 1 of a two part story 

The 2020 annual report of the Glen Cove City Stormwater Management Program was approved at the March 24 City Council meeting, which was done over a video chat. The city implemented the program, in compliance with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, to prevent illicit discharge from getting into water bodies like Hempstead Harbor. This is done through practices like covering storm water drains. 

At both a Glen Cove City Pre-Council Meeting on March 17 and the March 24 council meeting, Councilwoman Marsha Silverman spoke up when the approval of the 2020 StormWater Management Program Annual Report was brought to the table. 

“There are businesses on Garvies Point Road in the area that the stormwater management plan covers,” Silverman said. “So far, when we have heavy storms, the road has been flooding and that impacts the businesses and now they’re looking to bring residents down there. There have been people whose cars got flooded, like underwater over the last year.” 

According to Louis Saulino, the director of Public Works, the city decided to advance the construction of Garvies Point Road in 2016. In fact, reconstruction of that road, along with Herb Hill Road, goes back a decade. The project was funded in 2016 by federal aid administered by the New York State Department of Public Transportation and went to competitive bid the same year. 

However, the project was not awarded until 2017 because of legal issues. During that time period, according to Saulino, the DEC added protocols regarding excavation and testing, which impacted construction procedures and had a significant financial impact to the city. 

The city was required to implement a comprehensive stormwater management program that was needed to include pollution prevention measures, treatment or removal techniques, monitoring, use of legal authority and other appropriate measures to control the quality of stormwater discharged to the storm drains and then the surrounding water bodies, said Rocco Graziosi, the project manager at Public Works. 

But by implementing this project, the road began to flood. “There are a number of entities on Garvies Point Road so if that road continues to flood, many people get impacted,”

Silverman said. “I was just saying, it’s one thing to comply with the DEC. It’s another thing to really have a prospective stormwater management plan where the road doesn’t flood out.” 

The flooding issue was mitigated earlier this year because Garvies Point Road was paved. Prior to that, however, there’s been instances of flooding that have damaged cars and have caused other issues. Glen Cove Police Department Detective Lt. John Nagle said that there was an incident in January where people decided to drive on a roadway engorged in rainwater while construction was happening. Construction workers had to pull those people out of the car. 

Nagle said he was told that the flooding issues have since been remedied and that it’s not going to happen again. He couldn’t find a record of the exact date of that flood. 

Garbor Karsai, a real estate broker at Landmark Realtors, owns a property on Garvies Point Road. “It did affect my business,” he said. “Because of the flood, cars were drowned. Employees were trapped.” 

He said that since the roads were paved, that the situation has improved. 

Saulino said via email that in adherence to DEC protocols, that the city was required to cover drainage basins. Yet, this proved to be a safety issue prior to the paving of the road and installment of final drainage connections. He said that during events that were considered emergencies, the city did relax the requirements and the Police Department was able to assist employees in safely leaving their place of business on Garvies Point Road.