SKANEATELES - Progress is being made on drainage issues in the village of Skaneateles. The board heard a presentation on Franklin Street drainage by Paul Legneto of Barton & Loguidice Monday night. Last December, the village and town were involved in a drainage issue.

Barton & Loguidice looked into drainage along the Franklin Street corridor. Legneto wrote a request for funding to state Sen. John DeFrancisco, who secured $100,000 in a joint acquisition grant between the town and village to do a study. Legneto said he had included any streets where work was done to divert drainage, principally Franklin Street, West Elizabeth Street, Highland Street and Orchard Road.

The town wanted the village to contribute its $50,000 share of the grant money to this study, but the village had already contracted with Stearns and Wheeler engineers to study the Orchard Road and Highland Street sanitary sewer and storm water problems.

The village board decided to pay Stearns and Wheeler $18,900 first for their work on the Orchard Road study, then contribute to half the cost of Barton & Loguidice's original study on Franklin Street, amounting to $9,500 total. Legneto estimated that the final design would cost $22,500.

The Franklin Road study revealed that a combination of two overflowing detention basins, one near the Mirbeau Spa and another next to the Cedar House Bowling Center, as well as poor maintenance of a culvert, led to flooding of properties in the Franklin Street-West Elizabeth Street areas.

The engineers proposed a bypass plan to divert water with a diversion swale from Routes 5 and 20 and the Mirbeau channel. The water would be diverted through a four-foot pipe into a culvert, preventing flooding in the previously affected properties.

Legneto said the town had to administer the funding because the grant is written in the town's name, so they will have to do it after the contract is signed with the state, approved, and deemed acceptable to the Department of Transportation.

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 238 or kathleen.barran@lee.net