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The New Normans Kill: Much More Work Ahead

WAMC photo by Dave Lucas

The immediate crisis that resulted when a landslide interrupted the flow of the Normans Kill Creek between two golf courses is over, but environmental restoration is expected to take months...

A hillside near the Normanside Country Club in Bethlehem collapsed somewhere between 8 p.m. Sunday and 7 a.m. Monday, blocking a significant length of the creek that separates the Normanside Country Club from Capital Hills Golf Course on the Albany side.

A countywide state-of-emergency went into effect 12:30 p.m. Monday. Officials erred on the side of caution, fearing flooding upstream that could endanger homes.

By Monday night, heavy equipment was toiling away at breaking through the blockage. An 8-foot deep, 15-foot wide channel roughly 260 yards long was opened up around midnight.  Officials say they succeeded in averting a flood disaster, but Albany County Executive Dan McCoy says the changes made to accommodate the water flow are forever.    "It's gonna be the new Normans Kill creek is gonna shift around, get a little bit closer to the 5th and 6th hole on the Albany muni side and continue down but we're gonna have to do work to it, obviously, to widen it a little bit more, to make it flow a little bit quicker. So there's somethings that we have to look at. But for the state of the emergency in the county, we're keepin' it going but we're gonna shorten it. It's gonna go from the Normans Kill creeek where the launch is there for the canoes and stuff down to the Delaware Bridge and on both sides of the town of Bethlehem and the city of Albany to keep people off the waterway."

Sheriff Craig Apple affirms authorities have the upper hand.    "We really feel that we have the water issues under control, and as far as any homes that would need to be evacuated or anything to that effect, we feel that we have all of it under control at this point. The kayak portion will remain closed. the ground is still very soft. It's a huge marsh down there. There is a significant risk to public safety if somebody tries to traverse that area. Obviously on the other side of the creek it's extremely unstable. There is a public safety risk if people try to walk around down there so we are encouraging onlookers to stay back as far as possible and respect the boundaries of that area. And that's pretty much where we're at. Hopefully tonight we'll have it open. It'll be 30 foot wide and if that is the case then tomorrow it will be more about sitting back and going into a monitoring role and a stabilization role and starting to confer with the Army Core of Engineers and DEC as well as our municipal leaders as to how we're going to attack stabilizing that over there."

Apple says cameras will be set up so the county can remotely monitor the waterway. McCoy says it will "take a week or two" before a game plan can be developed to address the situation going forward.

According to a release issued by the office of Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, the back nine holes of the Capital Hills at Albany Golf Course will open tomorrow as scheduled, at 8 a.m. The front nine holes of the golf course and the driving range will be closed Wednesday and Thursday as construction equipment remains on the course to move debris in the Normans Kill Creek.

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.
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