By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- The Cross-Town Canal is about to undergo some flood-control refurbishment that could disrupt traffic while the work goes on.

The work is intended to alleviate the kind of flooding the neighborhoods around Leroy and Clinton streets and along Pleasant Street from Maynard Street to Market Street have been experiencing for years during heavy rainfall.

The proposed project is aimed at improving the canal’s capacity to hold and carry storm water by clearing impediments to the flow of runoff.

The work will begin Monday, July 24 at Leroy and Clinton streets and is expected to take about three weeks, according to Village Administrator Gregory Thompson.

“We hope it will be shorter, but you never know until you start digging,” he said.

When that’s done they will move to Pleasant Street and parts of the canal at Maynard and Market streets.

During that time the roadway and sidewalks could be dug up and traffic could be diverted or rerouted.

Thompson says he wants the work to be done before classes resume at Potsdam Central since children will be walking along those streets on their way to and from school. He said “substantial completion” is called for by then, meaning that the roadway “might not be blacktopped but will be all covered.” He hopes by then “all that will be left is cosmetic work.”

The Cross-Town Canal is a century-old component of the village’s storm water sewer system.

It was originally built as an open canal designed to drain farm fields east of Lawrence Avenue, carrying the water through the village to the Raquette River.

Part of the funding comes from a $50,000 grant from the St. Lawrence River Valley Redevelopment Agency’s Community Development and Environmental Improvement Program to assist in the rehabilitation of the infrastructure.