Ritchie to Announce New Round of State Funding to Help Protect Future of Fort Drum

State Senator Patty Ritchie on Tuesday will announce new funding for area health care and other investment to strengthen the partnership between Fort Drum and local communities, and help protect the future of the post, Upstate New York’s largest employer.

The investments are from a special fund that Senator Ritchie helped create, along with her Senate colleagues, in this year’s State Budget to help protect New York military installations, including Fort Drum, from federal cutbacks.

Senator Ritchie will be joined at a press conference by representatives of area hospitals that serve Fort Drum and surrounding communities.

WHO: Senator Ritchie and representatives from Carthage Area Hospital, River Hospital, Samaritan Medical Center, Gouverneur Hospital and the Development Authority of the North Country

WHEN: 11:00 a.m.

WHERE: Carthage Area Hospital, 1001 West Street, in Carthage

Senator Ritchie has led efforts in Albany to raise awareness and support for Fort Drum, in the face of potential military cuts that threaten the future of the post.

Her efforts have resulted in a total of $12 million in special funding included in the past four years’ State Budgets to protect New York military installations from cutbacks. In the North Country, that funding has been to relieve a housing crunch in Fort Drum-area communities, to expand health care and to pay farmers and others to preserve open space buffer areas near the post that allow military training operations to continue.

The special fund is in addition to millions of dollars approved in this year’s budget for housing and highway access improvements to the post, including funding this year for improvements to the Route 26 corridor, and for additional “buffer” purchases.

Senator Ritchie’s annual “Fort Drum Day” at the Capitol has helped rally support from state leaders for the post and the Army’s 10^th Mountain Division.