LACKAWANNA, NY — A Lackawanna man has been fighting for ten years now for changes to be made to the path of Smokes Creek.
It's eroding his backyard, and he's afraid he will eventually lose his house.
It's a story we've been following since 2016.
"It's gotta be at least 25 or 30 feet down, and if anyone goes off that end, they're gonna come after me," said Thomas DiVito, who has lived in his home along Smokes Creek for almost 30 years.
Many people trespass in his backyard to go fishing in Smokes Creek, but it's dangerous.
For the past ten years, he's been busy contacting just about every government official he can about the erosion problem in his backyard. He contacted us two years ago.
"This strip of land here, used to stick out about 12 feet and they actually used to mow this lawn," DiVito said, gesturing to a part of his lawn that now resembles an eroded cliff.
The last time Tom spoke with 2 On Your Side's Kelly Dudzik in December, he was trying to assemble a roundtable meeting with government officials.
"As far as I know, the only participants in such a meeting have been the DEC, the Army Crops, and the engineering firm that's working for the city," DiVito said.
That meeting was in February, but they didn't tell DiVito.
Dudzik filed Freedom of Information Requests with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and US Army Corps of Engineers to get the minutes and got the runaround.The DEC told me it didn't have them because it wasn't their meeting.
The Corps of Engineers said it didn't have them either and suggested contacting the DEC.
DiVito found out about possible solutions they discussed at the meeting, offering up an idea he thinks is better — to reroute the channel.
"It appears that what they first talked about doing was just building up the bank and I said that wasn't gonna work. And I had suggested rerouting the channel since this design now they consider to be antiquated. And so I think that is under consideration now," DiVito said.
DiVito wants the creek's path moved as soon as possible.
He has two neighbors, at least, who have already given up and their homes are empty.
"I'm not going away," DiVito laughs.