Conflicting Priorities Slow Efforts to Save NJ Towns From Floods

In a state subject to recurring floods in many places, attempts to solve local or regional problems have left some officials groping for a more comprehensive approach.

When the Christie administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to cooperate on a new $2.4 million study of flood prevention in the Passaic River Basin, they raised hopes in hard-hit towns in that area.

A bit to the south, though, the Passaic announcement caused consternation along the Millstone River. That’s because residents of Manville and flood-prone areas upstream were equally encouraged in 2002, when the Corps agreed on a similar study of their area. But a decade later, that study is creeping along, waiting for the promised funding, while attention turns elsewhere.

Under the Passaic River initiative, the Corps would join the state Department of Environmental Protection to “re-evaluate” previous studies and data, according to Corps spokesman Ken Wells. That was not on the Corps’ priority list, “it’s in response to Gov. Christie,” he said.

The Millstone venture committed the state and the Corps to decide among alternatives, including levees and floodwalls, elevating or removing homes and deepening the channel. Any of those options would be expensive, and a choice hinges in part on what the study finds about the causes of increased flooding.

Like its Passaic counterpart, the state and federal government agreed to split the $6.8 million cost of the Millstone study. But only $2.2 million has actually been spent, according to Jim Gentile, the project manager for the Corps.

Of an announced $24 million budget for the Corps’ New Jersey projects in the current fiscal year, Congress directed only $50,000 to the Millstone work. That was an improvement from FY 2011, when no money was appropriated. Little or no federal money means little or no state money. Under the agreement authorizing the study, New Jersey is only required to put up money to match federal appropriations, according to Corps officials.

“That study is sitting half-finished on the Corps’ desk, waiting for $4 million to be invested,” said Angelo Corradino, the frustrated mayor of Manville.

Located on the point where the Millstone empties into the Raritan, with a tributary stream snaking through the south side of town, Corradino’s borough turns into a virtual island, complete with lagoons, during the heaviest storms.

Flood-Prone Spots Seek Solutions

Legislators from the 16th District, which covers parts of Somerset and Hunterdon counties, have focused on the problem, but point out that Manville is not the only flood-prone spot going begging for help. They filed bills that would require the governor to appoint a task force within 30 days to address flooding concerns along the Millstone, Raritan and Delaware rivers.

Many New Jersey communities have suffered recurring floods, some localized and some part of larger problems, said Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerset). The federal and state governments need some framework beyond sending money to the squeakiest wheel, he said.

That legislative initiative faces some hurdles, not least that the sponsors acknowledge Passaic River flooding is a serious matter. It certainly has claimed headlines in recent years, with Gov. Chris Christie appointing a commission in April 2010 to address chronic problems.

“The Passaic Basin has gotten quite specific attention from Governor Christie because you’re seeing people needing to be rescued from flooding there just about every year,” said DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese. “Everything can’t be a priority at the same time.”

But even as they recognize the problems in the affected Passaic basin towns, the Millstone area legislators expressed dismay that after years of “storms of the century,” the federal and state response remains unsystematic, ad hoc.

“I have a vacation home at the Shore,” Ciattarelli said. “They spent $25 million replenishing the beaches around Surf City, and then four months later the Nor’easter came along and wiped it all out.”

Ciattarelli’s rough figure included work in Atlantic City and Ventnor, as well as a 2007 project halted when unexploded ordinance was found in sand being pumped on-shore. The Corps projects there took years to plan and get through Congress, but were needed because maintaining the beaches is vital to New Jersey’s economy, Ragonese said.

“Yes, we need beaches, but surely if they can find $25 million for sand that gets washed away they can find money to protect these people’s homes” along the Millstone and other rivers, Ciattarelli said.

‘Global Warming Preparedness’

At a November conference sponsored by Rutgers University and the Public Service Enterprise Group in November, speakers and state officials said data from the presentations on flooding and beach erosion was going into a “global warming preparedness” report to be released this spring by the DEP.

But recent contacts with organizers produced no clear picture of where that stands. The DEP is working with researchers from the City University of New York and other institutions, Ragonese said. But “it’s more of an assessment of vulnerabilities” than an action plan, he said. The agency still expects to release it sometime this year, he said.

Even in its own region, flooding along the Millstone seldom claims top billing. During the dramatic flooding from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, when central Manville was entirely cut off, news helicopters hovered over Bound Brook, diagonally across the Raritan. There, floodwaters raced through the low-lying downtown, where two people drowned and a fire burned.

Floyd spurred action on the $430 million Green Brook Flood Control Project, a huge network of dams, levees, floodgates, drainage basins and other features to protect Bound Brook and nearby communities.

Local officials credit the work completed so far with significantly reducing flood levels during Hurricane Irene last year. But the legislators pointed out that the work only addresses one stretch of the Raritan.

The Green Brook project was broached after Tropical Storm Doria, which killed three in 1971, and a 1973 flash flood that killed six, including motorists on Route 22, said Rutgers’ David Robinson, the state climatologist. Residents of other flood-prone areas who expect similar relief should also expect a long wait, he said.

“There are some options, like levees or (property) buyouts, but they are very expensive,” he said.

Ironically, the increased frequency of major floods in New Jersey does not necessarily bolster the political argument for flood-protection spending. Among national Republicans, it has become an article of faith that global warming does not exist and humans are not causing it.

In proposing the wider state flood task force, Ciattarelli said the cause is less important than the effect. “I don’t know care whether the cause is global warming, over-development, more runoff,” he said. “The problem is real and we have to do something to get help to these people.”

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