Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation to Provide $45 Million for Communities Impacted by Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River Flooding in Irondequoit

ALBANY, N.Y., July 6 -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., issued the following news release:

Earlier today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed legislation in Irondequoit to provide a total of $45 million in relief to communities impacted by the historic Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River flooding. The legislation expands eligibility and funding for programs previously announced by Governor Cuomo and will provide vital assistance to homeowners, small businesses, farms, not-for-profit organizations, homeowner associations, owners of multiple dwellings, and local governments that have suffered direct physical damage as a result of the flooding. The legislation also provides up to $10 million to reimburse Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, and Allegany counties for damages sustained as a result of the severe storms and flooding in July 2015, and for Monroe County for damages resulting from the severe storm of March 2017.

In addition, the Governor will be requesting an expedited major disaster declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to unlock federal assistance for local homeowners, businesses, and governments.

Amid ongoing questions about the transparency and management of the International Joint Commission (IJC), Governor Cuomo has called upon President Trump to immediately appoint new leadership to the IJC, which is responsible for regulating water levels on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The Governor is requesting that President Trump to replace the two sitting Commissioners and to fill a vacant Commissioner seat. All three U.S. Commissioners are appointed by the President and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below.

Thank you thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well it's my pleasure to be here today and thank you all very much for taking the time to come out. It's a pleasure to be with my colleagues from assembly and from the senate and I want to thank them for a great piece of work that I'm going to sign in just a few moments. To Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul it a pleasure to be with her. Commissioner Howard Zemsky who is not just a light on his feet, handsome, debonair and charming, he's also one heck of an economic development director so let's give him a round of applause. He's going to be running this program. Joe Morelle, see all those times you called me a force of nature, I thought that was an attack Joe, I thought that was an insult. But he is the leader leaders of the leader of the majority in the assembly, grand mystic leader is what we normally call him cause he makes us call him that otherwise he won't pass any legislation. Give him a round of applause for his great work. And senator helming, Joe Morelle, and Pam Helming were what you call the sponsors of the bill, which means they did the line and share of the work in negotiating and doing the research and getting their colleagues to sign on. This was a complicated piece of legislation and it was difficult and they both did an outstanding job and Senator Pam Helming has not been in the senate all that long so for her to come to into the senate and do this great of job is really extraordinary, so I want to recognize Joe Morelle and Pam Helming, let's give them a round of applause.

To county executive and all the local elected officials, today is a beautiful day as we look out on Lake Ontario and it's a peaceful setting and it's almost belies the danger and the damage and that this beautiful body of water has done. As Howard said, it's a 100 year high. There is no doubt that the fundamental reason the water is high is because of extreme rain in this and there has been more rain during this part of the season than past records. I believe that's the cause I believe it's been compounded and complicated by regulatory actions that were not taken at appropriate times. But, we are where we are. The state can't do anything about that, but the state can be responsive to the situation. Step 1 is respond to the emergency. And the state has more experience than I wish we had in responding to emergencies. There is something about the extreme weather that is now the reality. Somewhere along the way Mother Nature was offended by someone but she has been acting out in a way that we haven't seen in history. Just on the numbers my father was governor of the State of New York, god rest his soul, for 12 years. In about half the time my father was governor, I've had about double the number of natural emergencies. So, there is something to the extreme weather and the legislature has been very good at recognizing it and making the state's emergency response more sophisticated than ever before. We have equipment that we didn't have before. Training that we didn't have before. So step 1 is the emergency response. You see behind you is the black tubular material of something called an aqua dam, its basically a portal damn that the state purchased just for Lake Ontario and you put it in place and you fill it up and it adds 3, 4, 5, feet of sea wall to a property. And it's one of the pieces of equipment we've deployed to stop the record high level of the lake. You also see sand bags over 1 million sand bags. There is nothing fancy about a sand bag. It is sand and it is a bag and you put the sand in the bag and then you carry it and you do it 1 million times. That is a tremendous, tremendous effort and I want to thank the National Guard, who is the main work force for this day, because they did it and they really worked themselves day and night, good weather, bad weather, let's give them a round of applause and thank them.

I also want to thank the local first responders. This is unlike any emergency we've had in some ways because of its duration. Normally you have an emergency it's 2 days, it's 3 days, it's 4 days and you have your adrenaline running and you push through and you get it done. This is weeks and weeks and I can't tell you but I see the same people out there, the same police officers, the same firefighters day after day after day after day. The stamina that it takes to do what they do. I see Bill Reilich here who I've been with a number of times and phone call after phone call and the water just keeps coming and you feel like you're shoveling against the tide which you are literally. But they come out every day and they do it. So let's give a round of applause to the local first responders. So step 1, the emergency response, we've done. We are prepared for anything that could happen going forward. We have equipment in place, boats in place, personnel in place, and police in place. That moves to step 2, which is how do you start to rebuild.

In their situation, I believe the federal government owes the state of New York funding to reimburse us for the cost of this disaster. There's a federal relief program run by an agency called FEMA. FEMA's job is when you have a disaster like this that rises to a certain economic threshold, they reimburse the recipients for the damage. And we're going to be sending a letter to FEMA saying we intend to apply for FEMA funding. I believe we're going to hit those thresholds. I think it's only right that the federal government comes to the table and antes up and helps us pay for this disaster so we'll be doing that with FEMA forthwith.

Third, I call on the President to evaluate and appoint qualified people to the IJC. The IJC is the regulatory body. It is the regulatory body that regulates how much water is the outflow of the lakes. There's no doubt that God put the water there. Everybody agrees with that. An extraordinary amount of rain, that filled the lake. The second question was what do the regulators do and how did they react as they saw the water level rising? And I think at a minimum, their actions should be studied with the advantage of hindsight because my guess is something like this happens again and we don't want to have the same mistakes again. The President appoints three people to the IJC. I'd love one to be a New Yorker. But certainly they should know the Great Lakes, they should know the environmental issues they're dealing with so when they make these judgments they're making these judgments in the most informed way.

Fourth, you see that boat that's cruising out there with those very friendly looking people? I don't think they wave. Will they wave? See how friendly. The State Police are a friendly force. They are a reminder that we have a new regulation in place that says there's a five mile per hour speed limit within 600 miles of the shoreline. I know it's an inconvenience for a boater, I'm a boater, last thing a boater likes to see is that five mile per hour sign. Please, if you understood the damage that you can be doing with the wake from the boat, you have situations where every wave comes into somebody's basement. Every wave comes into somebody's first floor. Literally every wave can do damage and the last thing we want to do is exacerbate the situation. It's a 600 foot, five mile per hour, for the full length of the lake. Period. And that's enforced by the State Police and by the local police.

And then the legislation that I will sign now in front of you, which was sponsored by Joe Morelle and Pam Helming. Which is a great piece of legislation. And the reason I was teasing Pam and Joe a little bit, I called something called the extraordinary session last week. What is that? That is the legislature sits and has a regular session and then they finish and they go home. And the Governor has the power to call an extraordinary session and call them back. They really hate when you do this. This is like you're waiting for the last day of school and you're going to get out of school and June 22nd is the day. June 22nd comes and you're home and school is over and it's gone and then you get a call and they say, "Oh no no no, you have to come back for another four days." They came back to extraordinary session and they were not the most happy bunch let's say. And that's when Joe Morelle and started calling me the force of nature, which I still believe was a negative context - as in making the legislature come back to extraordinary session. But be that as it may, water off the ducks back because that's the kind of guy I am.

They did come back because there was work to do. And one of the main pieces of work was putting together a package for flood relief for the victims of the Lake Ontario flooding. Exactly what we're doing here. And that's why, it's a smart comprehensive program. We estimate it will cost about $55 million in total. Again, were going to go to FEMA for reimbursement. But it will reimburse homeowners up to $50,000 for damage to their homes. Small businesses, up to 100 employees, up to $50,000. Farms, municipalities, reimbursed for their cost of damages. It will allow local governments to do mitigation efforts. When I talk to local governments, I say let's learn from what happened here. Be prepared if the level gets this high again and now is the time to do mitigation work to make sure it doesn't have the same level of damage.

As you heard, it also has reimbursement for damage to Monroe Country from the past wind storms. The point that the legislation is simple. You have businesses that have been devastated by this. You have businesses that their whole season is the summer and tourism. And this has hurt the number of tourists that are coming to the lake and wiped them out. You have homeowners who have been wiped out. $50,000 if you don't have flood insurance, and many of these homes don't have flood insurance, and the insurance carrier won't cover it under the existing coverage. $50,000 is just bankruptcy. It just wipes you out. Your main asset, which was the home, is gone. We can't solve the problem that Mother Nature created. But we can make it better and we can make sure that it's not economically devastating.

My last point is this, and both Joe and Pam touched on it. When you're Governor of New York you get to see a lot of different parts of the state and you get to see a lot of different aspects to the character of New Yorkers. And one of the things that makes New York so special is the diversity within the state. You know, you have within one state the most rural parts of this country and the most urban parts. You have upstate New York, you have downstate New York. Within upstate because there really is no upstate, you have Buffalo, you have Rochester, Syracuse, little different then the North Country, little different then the Southern Tier. Of course, you have Long Island, you have the people from Manhattan. All a little different and all within one state. And that diversity makes us special. But, the one thing that I have noted that I find most admirable is that when any part of the state has a problem, the rest of the state is there like that, no questions asked. You have all this diversity, but when someone is in need, it's one family. And they're there to help one another and do whatever they can. When Long Island had Hurricane Sandy and I had to go to the Legislature and the people across the state and say you know these people are wiped out we have to step up to the plate, nobody batted an eye, whatever you need. When we had seven feet of snow in Buffalo and people couldn't even imagine that, I went to the legislature and I went to the people of the state and I said they need our help. They drove equipment all across the state in the middle of a snow storm to go help. It's when things are at their worst, New Yorkers are at their best. And when things are at their worst, then you get to see into somebody's soul and you get a snapshot of their character and how are they going to react and what are they going to do. And New Yorkers uniformly have come together and said we are one. We're one family, whatever they need, we're there for them. And we came back in that extraordinary session and Senator Helming, a Republican, Assemblyman Morelle, a Democrat, honored the first rule of good government, which is we're not Democrats first, we're not Republicans first. We are New Yorkers first.

And playing politics and polarizing people with politics is what's going on in Washington right now and gridlocking a government which is then stopping progress for a country. That doesn't happen in Albany, and thanks to the character and the conduct of people on both sides of the aisle. Well done to the legislature. I wish we could make it all better. We can't. But we can help you rebuild, we can help you economically and we can help you with support, friendship and with love. And that's why we're here and that's what this legislation does. Let's sign the bill.

VIDEO of the remarks is available on YouTube here (https://youtu.be/FnMMqpItECA) and in TV quality (h264 format) here (https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/XdcycZlNfK).

AUDIO of the remarks is available here (https://soundcloud.com/nygovcuomo/governor-cuomo-makes-an-announcement-in-monroe-county).

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page (https://www.flickr.com/photos/governorandrewcuomo/albums).