Gov’t agencies band together for solution

BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

How do you stop a 100-year storm from causing flash floods?

That was the question that local, county and federal officials set out to answer last week as they toured sections of Middlesex County that were flooded July 17, in some cases for the second time in a year.

Congressman Rush Holt joined state Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein, representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Helmetta Mayor Nancy Martin, Spotswood Mayor Barry Zagnit and Jamesburg Mayor Anthony LaMantia for the meeting and tour, along with officials from Monroe and Old Bridge, and the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection Dam and Flooding Department.

Greenstein said the purpose of the meeting was for the Army Corps of Engineers to make a preliminary assessment of the area and ultimately consider a solution to prevent flooding of such magnitude and frequency.

“As bad as it is to have to clean up and deal with the problems now, the larger issue is, ‘What if this happens again? What if we have another really heavy rain?’ ” Greenstein said.

Holt said that although the severity of the storm, which brought 8 to 10 inches of rain to the area in just a few hours, was unexpected and rare, it should not have caused such flooding.

“Still, I’m wondering why the streams couldn’t handle it; what the problem was,” Holt said. “And even while we’re trying to get assistance to those people who have experienced damage and some hardship, we’re going ahead to try to figure out what can be done to prevent this sort of thing in the future. And that’s where the Corps of Engineers comes in.”

Zagnit called the meeting a good first step, but said the problem is complex and will take time and resources to solve.

There are myriad possible causes of the flooding and therefore just as many possible answers, he noted.

“There are many, many thoughts being kicked around,” Zagnit said. “Everybody has an idea of what they think it might be. And I think each one of those needs to be examined, and either proven or disregarded.”

He said the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers will be to analyze the existing flood prevention mechanisms in the area to see if they are working properly.

There are flood gates in Jamesburg, Spotswood and Duhernal Lake, which is at the border of East Brunswick, Spotswood and Old Bridge.

Years ago, officials developed a system that coordinated the opening and closing of the gates with the ebb and flow of the tides, Zagnit said.

If water from the flood gates was sent downstream when the tide was coming in, the two bodies of water would collide, causing the water from the floodgates to back up and flood.

The system regulated the gates, so that when the tide is coming in, the water from the gates is held back, and then released when the tide turns — all part of a six-hour cycle.

“And we get rid of a lot of water in six hours,” Zagnit said. “And if the tide runs out for six hours, we can open the gates and just let it rip. And then when the tide turns, we close the gates back down, and we found that we minimized flooding in the areas down on the South River, along the East Brunswick-Sayreville border.”

Areas of Spotswood that used to flood often have not flooded in 25 years because of improvements made to the town’s drainage system, Zagnit noted.

But something, he said, must have changed.

“The logical mind would say, ‘Why?’ All those years we didn’t have a problem, and now it’s here again,” Zagnit said.

Martin said there may have been a problem with the opening of the gates, something that affects Helmetta because of its central location. Helmetta Public Works Director Darren Doran said the floodgates at Duhernal are partially owned and operated by the borough of Sayreville.

Martin said there is also an unregulated dam on the nearby cranberry bogs in Monroe that may not be operating properly, and Doran noted that officials are trying to have the unregulated dam removed.

The dam, Doran said, is in a ditch and is made up of cinder blocks, sand-filled garbage bags, wood and metal. He said he is unsure as to why that dam was constructed, but that it hinders the bogs’ ability to contain stormwater.

“I’m not sure it serves a legitimate purpose at all,” Doran said. “What it does is it effectively holds back water in one of the old cranberry bogs.”

If that bog was drained and dry, it would serve as a retention ditch, and would be able to hold more water before spilling over, he noted.

The meeting, Martin said, was productive, as each town’s representatives were given the opportunity to discuss issues they felt were important.

One issue that needs to be addressed, Martin said, is the consistency of state guidelines regulating the construction of retention and detention basins.

“The problem also is developments that are being approved according to state guidelines, because they can’t force them to build bigger retention basins,” Martin said, adding that the retention basins are built to handle the so-called 100-year storm. “And, obviously, we’ve seen worse rain in the past nine months.”

Holt said the low elevation of the area makes it susceptible to flooding, as Helmetta began flooding long after the rain storm had stopped.

“You could actually trace the flow downstream,” Holt said. “So some of the runoff from upstream was clearly affecting towns downstream.”

Representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers, who were joined by county engineers and local municipal engineers, discussed the role of the area’s dams, bogs, set-aside wetlands and runoff from developments, and Holt said they are concentrating on the ability of the streams to hold rainwater.

Greenstein said the meeting was evidence of the sincere cooperation between local, county, state and federal officials, which she feels is the only way to truly combat the problems.

“Instead of thinking within the borders of the town, they’re thinking regionally, which I believe you absolutely have to do with these kinds of issues,” Greenstein said. “I don’t think we do enough of that.”

Despite the effort and abilities of the Army Corps of Engineers, Zagnit said, the process may be time-consuming and costly.

“I know the residents want quick answers, I certainly would love to have quick answers, but it’s just not the nature of the beast,” Zagnit said. “It’s going to take a long time to really come up with a game plan, and to be able to say to people, definitively, ‘This is why we think it flooded.’ ”

But, he added, the Army Corps of Engineers is the proper agency to undertake this task.

The Corps is expected to prepare an initial report, schedule another meeting, and then work on a proposal. Its work, Zagnit said, is thorough and complete, but the anticipation of their findings may require some patience on the part of the area’s residents.

“With government, the regulations are so restrictive and cumbersome, that it just drags on and on and on, and it’s more expensive than it needs to be,” Zagnit said. “It’s a frustrating thing for all of us.”

Frustration, Greenstein said, has already set in, after many residents lost property in the flood for the second time in less than a year.

“I saw so many frustrated people, and I can tell you, that’s how I feel — that they literally just had to put out money,” Greenstein said. “This wasn’t something they could buy over time, they had to get these things immediately. And some of these people don’t have the money, and some of them are just out of their houses.”

After the flood, representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) studied the area’s possible qualification for federal disaster aid. While no final decision has been made, Holt said the area has not been declared a federal disaster area, despite requests from Acting Gov. Richard Codey, and other local and state officials.

“It hasn’t been declared a disaster area because [the damage is] spotty, it’s not widespread enough,” Holt said. “Even though there’s a real problem for some people, it doesn’t seem to be enough to qualify as a FEMA disaster. So that means certain kinds of assistance just won’t be available.”

He said there is a possibility of victims qualifying for low-interest loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), but no decision has been rendered yet on that either.

While any monetary assistance would help, Greenstein said the SBA loans may not be a realistic possibility for many victims.

“A lot of people are really not in much of a position to start taking out loans, and they need immediate help,” Greenstein said, adding that many residents were still replacing water heaters and furnaces when the latest flood hit.

Martin said that with little funding available, residents just cannot afford to go through this again.

She hopes the study will produce solutions to the problems at the cranberry bogs, the floodgates at Duhernal and any other possible cause of the flooding.

Something must be done to control and contain all the increased stormwater, she said.

“As all this development just continues, we have to make sure that we’re not going to wash away one day.”