Pictured is Twan Leenders, Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy director of conservation, in front of the Chadakoin River. Having recently received approval for funding through the City Council and the Jamestown Local Development Corporation, Leenders is planning on moving forward with the next phase of the Chadakoin River project. P-J photo by Timothy Frudd

Twan Leenders, Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy director of conservation, is hoping to build upon the success of last year’s Chadakoin River projects by taking multiple steps forward this year with the next phase of funding and projects.

Leenders described the current Chadakoin Basin and Chadakoin River projects as the result of a “wonderful development” with the Jamestown Local Development Corporation, the City Council and the city administration. Leenders told The Post-Journal that the city’s approval for additional funding of Chadakoin River projects has allowed the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy to engage in multiple projects that are critical for the environmental and economic impact of the river and the river basin.

“We started this restoration project last year,” he said. “It really was phase one of what’s really a long-term, large-scale restoration effort with different phases that need to happen in sequence and really need to happen from the beginning to the end. If you don’t finish the process once you started, then you are kind of back to square one again, and you’ve wasted all this time and effort and money.”

While the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy finished improvement projects on the Chadakoin River last year, Leenders said he put in an additional grant request at the end of last summer for one of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s water quality improvement project grants. The purpose of the grant request was to fund the next “several phases” of the Chadakoin River restoration work; however, Leenders said the state did not approve the grant request.

“Usually these are announced in November, and we just find out a few weeks ago that we didn’t have it, so they were late to begin with,” he said. “It was getting a little nervous because we’re this far into the year already and it just takes time to get all the contractors lined up and get all the plans ready and permits and all that kind of stuff.”

While the state’s rejection of the grant request was “not great news,” Leenders said that after meeting with the Chautauqua County Partnership for Economic Growth and the JLDC, it was proposed that Jamestown could utilize matching funds from a grant already received by the city for activation work on the Chadakoin River Basin. While the funds had already been allocated by the city, Leenders said a portion of the matching funding had not been “specifically allocated” for “specific project components.”

“I quickly went back to the drawing board and met with all the contractors and all the engineers and we were able to actually pull together sections of the original request that I had put out to the state for funding that would be the logical next steps in this process that would sort of also fall within the action area that the matching funding could be allocated towards,” he said. “It was kind of really a perfect storm of like craziness, but it turned into a really nice package of projects that I think will really help move the project along and will put us in a better position for reapplying for the state grant again.”

Following the City Council’s recent approval of funding for work on the Chadakoin River Basin, Leenders said the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy is preparing to move on the various projects. He told The Post-Journal that a lot of “exciting things” are about to happen with the Chadakoin River, particularly with the Chadakoin River Basin. The funding approved by the JLDC and the City Council is primarily focused on the section of the Chadakoin from the basin to the North Main Street Bridge.

“The plan right now is really three separate projects that sort of tie into all of this,” he said. “The bigger one is restoration of three sections of the Chadakoin River bank. We’ll actually rebuild this entire bank, and then also on the other side of the dam, the north side of the river, so the section below the train station, essentially.”

In addition to the rebuilding of the Chadakoin River banks, Leenders plans to remove debris from the Chadakoin River Basin. The removal of the debris is expected to make the Chadakoin River Basin navigable for summer recreation. Leenders said he hopes this project will be able to both start and finish in the next few weeks.

Another project Leenders hopes to finish this year is the removal of two beaver dams near Canal Street that currently cause flooding issues in nearby city streets.

While the Chadakoin River projects involve a considerable amount of work and funding, Leenders believes it is important for the projects to be finished as quickly and effectively as possible.

“We’re talking about a five-year plan over three and a half miles of river, which is not really how most people look at these kinds of projects, but frankly, this is the only way we can do this right,” he said. “We have to do this not just on the temporal scale. You have to begin these projects and see them through to the end, but you also have to do it at the right sort of geographic scale. Otherwise, if you just do it piecemeal, then it still doesn’t work.”