Aboard the Tugboat Grand Erie

Here’s a clip from Friday morning of a trip along the Erie Canal I took with a boatload of state officials to check on conditions there. Speaking is former Schenectady Mayor and current Canal Corp. executive director Brian U. Stratton.

  1. Flustered says:

    Did any of these officials happen to explain WHERE and from WHO the $100 million dollars needed to repair the Canal will come from??? Since the Canal Corp raises only pennies for every dollar it expends, it has to come from highway tolls. This is fiscal insanity for the benefit of a few dozen row boats and dinghies.

  2. C says:

    my tiny town depends on those few dozen row boats and dinghies.

  3. atsudo nym says:

    It indeed does seem like fiscal insanity until you look at the options. Fact is, dissasembling the canal would be almost as expensive as restoring it. Somehow, you would have to remove all those locks and dams on the Mohawk.

    And you would lose the flood control value of those locks as well. Granted, that flood control is not absolute, but there’s no question that the existence of the canal has moderated high water events along the Mohawk in the 90-some years since it was last rebuilt.

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