COHOES, N.Y. - A quarter mile of the 19th century Erie Canal in this old textile city north of Albany is being turned into a town park and walking path thanks to members of the New York Army National Guard's 204th Engineer Battalion.
The Soldiers - assigned to the 1156th Engineer Company from Kingston, N.Y., and the 152nd Engineer Company from Buffalo - are working to transform the area by cutting down trees, trimming weeds, and leveling the ground between Locks 14 and 15 of the 19th century canal bed.
For the Soldiers, working on the project has been a rewarding experience.
"It's great training and we are helping out the City of Cohoes," said Spc. Charles Adams. "It is all about giving back to the community and at the same time having a little fun," he added.
The Cohoes project is one of four Innovative Readiness Training opportunities the engineers from the 204th Eng. Bn. are taking part in, said Lt. Col. Jim Freehart, the battalion commander .
IRT projects allow Army National Guard and Army Reserve units the ability to take part in local community projects when the work involves the unit's combat tasks and the job is not something the municipal workforce or a private company would ordinarily be able to do.
In addition to the Erie Canal project, the battalion has one team working on ranges at the New York National Guard's Camp Smith Training Site, a second team is upgrading drainage at Niagara County's Bond Lake Park on the other side of the state, while still another training mission is taking place in a quarry where the unit is running rock crushing equipment.
At another quarry near Niagara Falls the engineers are also getting a chance to train on heavy rollers, big scrapers and graders and other road building equipment.
"What we have out there is a big sandbox and we have been invited to bring all our (equipment) into it," Freehart said.
Because engineers are tasked to work on a number of projects at once, both overseas and when responding to emergencies in New York, this kind of dispersed training is both realistic and builds leadership skills at the company level, Freehart said.
It also builds the Soldier's military job skills.
"It is a ton of real life experience," said Spc. John Pember. "A lot of us have some type of construction jobs so getting to do this is fantastic and applies the skills we have in everyday life and the training we have in the military."
The battalion started the project last year by doing the initial clearing on the old canal bed— unused since 1911— that runs above the Mohawk River. This year the team will continue clearing out the brush and additional work in 2013 should complete the project, Freehart said.
For Adams the combination of military skills and working in the community is the best part about the project.
"It's the best of both worlds," he said. "We are not just sitting at a post and doing the same things over and over. We are using our skills."