Scajaquada project gets $600,000 boost

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Crews are in the homestretch of a seven year project to restore the stretch of Scajaquada Creek that flows through Forest Lawn Cemetery. That work got a boost Tuesday with an announcement that the state, with the support of Senator Chris Jacobs and Assembly Member Sean Ryan, has committed $600,000 to restore nearly four acres of wetlands in the cemetery adjacent to the S curves on Delaware Avenue.

Work on the entire $6.8 million project is scheduled to wrap up by the end of the year, provided the final $700,000 in necessary funding is secured. The work will modestly help water quality at a point where the creek empties into Hoyt Lake in Delaware Park, but the source of the Scajaquada’s pollution is mostly upstream.

Between them, Buffalo and Cheektowaga have plans for more than $140 million in work to reduce the flow of sewage and runoff into the creek, which at its peak totaled 500 million gallons a year. But that work is going to take more than a decade to complete and will reduce, but not eliminate, the flow of pollutants into the creek.