New York State Canal System to receive US$50 million in maintenance funding

A capital investment totalling US$50 million will be made into the New York State Canal system as part of the FY 2025 Enacted Budget, New York Governor Kathy Hochul confirmed recently.

The funding will ensure that New York’s 524-mile (843-kilometre) Erie Canal will remain safe and operable for tourism and economic activity. Investments will focus on high-priority infrastructure needs including the rehabilitation of water-impounding structures that have been in service for more than a century.

Governor Hochul said the investment seeks to make the current Erie Canal, which connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean, and the entire canal system remain safe for the state’s residents.

The funding included as part of the FY 2025 Enacted Budget is part of a comprehensive effort to revitalise the canal system by the New York Power Authority and New York State Canal Corporation. This effort includes strategically rehabilitating and improving the system’s infrastructure including locks, dams, embankments, culverts, and other civil assets so that the network of waterways and trails will continue to positively support the more than 200 upstate New York communities that are within the canal corridor.

Projects to be funded with the US$50 million may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Rehabilitation of reservoir dams built in the 19th and early 20th century to supply water to the Enlarged Erie Canal (1836 – 1918) and other canals
• Waste weirs used to regulate the canal’s water levels
• Improvements to earthen embankment dams, including the continuation of extensive work in Royalton, Niagara County to install a soil-bentonite slurry wall to mitigate seepage
• Rehabilitation of other water management structures that provide resilience benefits, like guard gates that can be used to isolate and protect sites during high water events