Schumer, left, with Chris and Eve Pawelski, in a flood-ruined field, earlier this week

WASHINGTON – US Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand requested emergency funding to aid New York farmers who were hard hit by Hurricane Irene last month.  The New York lawmakers asked Senate leaders to approve funding for the Emergency Conservation Program and the Emergency Watershed Program.

The request on Tuesday comes one day after Schumer toured Orange County’s black dirt farm region and saw the devastation of the farm fields and their almost mature crops submerged in floodwaters.

Pine Island onion farmer Christopher Pawelski said he is “encouraged” by the senators’ quick action seeking aid.  Pawelski acknowledged the federal government is facing budgetary issues, but noted government has money where it wants to spend it.

“Each week the government is spending something like $900 million on the war in Afghanistan so it’s a question of priorities and what you choose to spend it on,” he said. “You would really hope that saving our farmers in the Hudson Valley and in New York State and the entire Northeast, and saving other businesses as well, would be a priority for this country.”

Pawelski estimated damage to farm crops in the Mid-Hudson Valley to be in the tens of millions of dollars.