Home Goods, TJ Maxx return to Pequannock

By Steve Janoski

PEQUANNOCK -  In another sign that things are finally returning to "normal" after last year’s extensive flooding, TJ Maxx and Home Goods are officially reopening in the Plaza 23 shopping center this month.

According to officials from the stores’ parent company, TJX Companies, Inc., TJ Maxx is scheduled to open first at 8 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 16. Home Goods will follow on Sunday, Sept. 23.

"We are pleased to be back in Pompton Plains, delivering value and an exciting selection of fashion to serve the needs of the customers," said TJ Maxx President Richard Sherr in a press release; a Home Goods representative said that the company was "thrilled" to be back in Pequannock as well.

Both stores, which are located just off of Route 23 North at the Jackson Avenue intersection, have been closed since August 2011 due to flooding from Hurricane Irene. There was some speculation as to whether they would return, but Mayor Rich Phelan said Monday that the town is happy to hear that the stores are back in business.

"It helps that whole shopping center," said Phelan. "Those businesses have been struggling since the flood, and the extra traffic will definitely help them."

The future of the A&P supermarket, the shopping center’s anchor store, remains in doubt, however.

Phelan said that he would be surprised if the supermarket did not reopen because the location is "very profitable," but he was confident that even if it did decide to walk away, another grocery store would take its place.

"A lot of people shopped there because it was convenient for Pequannock and parts of Wayne," he said.

The Plaza 23 property is valued at about $27,700,000 and pays roughly $475,000 in taxes annually.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/news/169991376_Home_Goods__TJ_Maxx_return_to_Pequannock.html

US Army Corps presents new flood study plan to Pequannock public

By Steve Janoski

One year. Just one.

That's the deadline set by US Army Corp of Engineers (ACE) New York District Commander Colonel John Boule last Wednesday evening for completing the first phase of a $15 million study of the Passaic River Basin that officials believe might finally end with a solution to mitigate flooding.
Colonel John R. Boule, the New York District commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, and Eugene Brickman, Corps of Engineers deputy chief, speak to the large crowd that gathered at PTHS to hear the ACE's plan on river flooding.

But this won't be the same old review, Boule told a collection of area mayors and media members just before an ACE-hosted public outreach program was set to begin at Pequannock Township High School.

This one, he said, is going to take all of the information already accrued about the 983-square-mile basin by well over a dozen studies in the past century (especially the research done in 1987) and build off it.

And, he said, it's going to be done quick.

"If you look at how long it took us to get a recommended solution in the 1980s, we want to do it much faster," said Boule. Finishing work like this inside a year, he said, is "light speed" for the ACE.

Officials see six possible plans on the table as options to alleviate the flooding that has cost more than $3.5 billion in 22 years.

In one calendar year, the ACE wants it narrowed down to one or two realistic options.

Two of the plans involve different configurations of levees and floodwalls along the Passaic and its tributaries, coupled with either bridge and dam modifications or channel modification. Depending on which was selected, this would cost between $840 million and $961 million.

Another plan is a "non-structural alternative" that more or less relies on buyouts and home elevations to move residents out of harm's way. Moving those residents out of the floodway itself would cost an estimated $294 million. Moving them out of the 100-year floodplain would cost $7.3 billion.

Another plan is to improve both Beatties Dam in Little Falls and the Two Bridges area along the PassaicRiver (no cost estimate was offered), while a fifth would be to take no action and let things continue as they will.

The final option would be to bring back the much maligned idea of building a $2.7 billion, 21-mile flood tunnel that would funnel water from the flood basin down to Newark Bay. This plan is unlikely to be resurrected and is only included, Boule said, because it was the 1987 plan's approved solution.

"The Christie Administration has made it crystal clear that that is not an option," Boule said of the tunnel.

No stopping water

The colonel admitted that there has been a move away from what he called "monstrous structural projects," and he attributed that to a combination of the environmental movement and a new view on flooding — it's no longer about controlling the water.

"You can't do that. You've got to change your mindset," he said. "It's about reducing the residual risk to the public to the lowest level that's affordable."

David Rosenblatt, the Department of Environmental Protection's director of construction, agreed and noted that economics has also had a heavy impact on the shift toward policies that rely more on buyouts and elevations than on brick-and-mortar projects.

"There's not enough money out there to do a lot of the structural work that would normally be designed," he said. "(That) would require appropriations from Congress over a large number of years, and those appropriations are rather uncertain… at the federal and state levels."

Once the first phase is complete and the choices whittled down, Boule said, the ACE would take a more detailed, intensive look at the remaining options. The state would have to agree to a final plan before the ACE could have it brought to Washington for congressional approval.

Boule said he understood the frustration on the part of both local officials and residents about the issue and said that the public outreach meetings were meant to offer citizens a chance to voice their concerns and ideas. Shortly afterward, Boule found a packed PTHS auditorium brimming with those looking to share ideas.

The crowd, which likely numbered around 100, appeared willing to listen to the ACE plan, but clearly remained skeptical that any work would ever be done.

Some, like Pequannock resident Al Fabrizio, immediately looked past the ACE's outlined options and asked why other, more immediate fixes such as reservoir management, weren't being investigated.

"If you control the reservoirs, and I don't know why no one has brought this up, we can live with at least one eye closed at night. It's that simple," he said.

Rosenblatt would later comment that the DEP had discussed the regulation of reservoirs "extensively," but the department was not ready to go public with a decision.

"It's not really a workable solution as we see it right now," he said, declining to go into further detail.

Others, like Pequannock resident Nate Glinbizzi, said that the ACE should stick to its deadline as tightly as possible.

"We've had Army Corps of Engineers people retire studying the flood plain. I really want action," he said. "We are waiting. I may not be around in two or three years, but I hope I will be, and I'd like to see this done."

Hans Prell, a Little Falls resident and president of that town's Flood Board, said that he'd spent 60 years in the river basin and had heard "lots of talk" from governors and ACE officials alike but had yet to see any flood prevention work.

He dismissed the idea of a timeline and said that he thought it would be at least 10 years before any kind of groundbreaking occurred.

"I don't care what you say. We're going to have to wait 10 years, and that's government. I know it is, and I see it all the time," he said. "I'll see something happen when I'm 73 years old on that Beatties Dam when I've been fighting for it for God knows how many years."

A number of other residents spoke as well, some just to share their experiences while others, like Lincoln Park Councilman Gary Gemian, decried the lack of government action.

Boule admitted that he could not guarantee that anything would be built as a result of the 2012 study, but said that if there was enough political will and consensus, something could happen in the Passaic River Basin similar to what is occurring in Bound Brook, where $400 million worth of flood-protection measures are under construction.

"There's solutions going on down on the ground. Can they happen here in the Passaic River Basin? Yes they can," said Boule. "If we push the elected officials…to make it happen, it can happen, and you have to believe that. If you don't believe it, then nothing, obviously, is going to happen."

"Since 1903, nothing has gotten done," someone in the crowd yelled after Boule's statement concluded. "That's why we don't believe you."

"I hear you," Boule replied. "I hear you."

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/news/162547556_Army_Corps_wants_one_more_year_for_flood_relief_studies.html?page=all

Pequannock hit with record flooding as Pompton rises to unprecedentedheights

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2011

BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER
SUBURBAN TRENDS

Some areas of the East Coast managed to slip Hurricane Irene's knockout blows, but Pequannock, as always, took it right on the chin, with 9 inches of rain overwhelming every brook and river in the township and causing a degree of flooding that hasn't been seen since 1903.

At Town Hall on Monday, exhausted Pequannockofficials were unable to tell what day it was because they'd been awake so long while firefighters mounted huge deuce-and-a-half trucks and took to the waters to take people and animals out of homes.

All the while, residents and emergency personnel alike were awed at the unprecedented amount of damage that had been done to a town that had been transformed into a small island and left to fend for itself.

Preparations had been taken and flood plans were implemented. Governor Christie ordered the Pompton Lake Dam opened up on Saturday to drain the lake of about 3 feet of water, and toldPequannock Mayor Rich Phelan that he would be "taking a leap of faith" with local mayors to try to avert a 100-year flood.

In the end, after Hurricane Irene rumbled through the area this weekend and dropped over 9 inches of rain in the course of less than 24 hours, public officials would realize that Pompton Lake could have been drained down to the bed and it still wouldn't have mattered.

By the time the Pompton River was done with its tantrum at about 5 a.m. Sunday, it had crested at 25.24 feet, shattering the records for flooding from the past century and finally eclipsing the legendary 1984 flood by almost a foot.

A tired Phelan was shocked by the devastation that the waters brought.

"I couldn't believe how bad it was," he said on Monday afternoon. "The benchmark flood was 1984, everybody has always talked about the 1984 flood, that this was the big one — and this was beyond where we were at in 1984."

Phelan had promised during last year's election campaign to raise hackles about Pequannock's flooding problems with the state, but even he had to admit that this year's event, which was the seventh overall and the fifth major flood in the past two years, was unavoidable.

"We could probably stop the 10-year-flood," Phelan said. "But you can't stop the 100-year floods. It's impossible…you will never stop the 100-year flood unless you build 40-foot concrete walls out there…this is the one you have to grin and bear."

Township Manager Dave Hollberg had been awake for days as well, and met with Suburban Trends in his office on Monday during a break in the maelstrom of activity that characterized Pequannock's Office of Emergency Management command center, which was situated in a small conference room at Town Hall.

Hollberg said that with rain predictions ranging from 6 to 10 inches, it was difficult to know what to prepare for, but with the reservoirs to the north of the township already nearly full, he knew it would be only a matter of time before the waters of the Pequannock, Pompton, and Wanaque rivers combined to make Pequannock a reservoir itself.

Evacuations by way of reverse-911 calls began in the lowest-lying areas — neighborhoods by Harrison Road and businesses along Route 23 — late Saturday night and into early Sunday as the storm commenced, but things remained calm, the manager said.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, however, troubles began to mount. Water began coursing over the spillway at the Pompton Lake Dam, Hollberg said, and within a few hours, 6,600 cubic feet of water per second was charging through and heading downstream.

At 3 a.m., the water levels started rising; between 4 and 5 a.m., the river jumped up 2 feet. By 6 a.m., it had risen another 2 feet, and evacuations began on Oakwood and Pequannock avenues. The river had reached 16.5 feet — flood stage.

The Village was evacuated in preparation, and to nearly everyone's shock, Greenview Park and West Parkway began to flood for the first time in memory.

Some flooded-out residents on the west side of town blamed the new turf field construction atPequannock Township High School, although Hollberg said it's a bit more likely that it was rain combined with water blitzing down off the mountains that inundated the Beaver Brook by the Lincoln Park Airport and caused the water to back up into the streets.

'No place to go'

"When you get that much rain, it rushes down the mountain, and then it hits this flat spot and it's got no place to go," Hollberg said.

On Sunday morning, standing puddles of nearly a foot of water had made West Parkway impassable, and Jacksonville Road soon followed.

At the same time, Route 23 closed; Hollberg said that within an hour of the jughandle closing, the rest of Route 23 was shut off and only local traffic has been allowed in since.

The Newark-Pompton Turnpike would be shut down late Sunday afternoon as waters began to lap over the thoroughfare at several points and the Pompton swelled up to meet the bridge at the south end of town running into Wayne.

Calls rolled in constantly Sunday for evacuations, and they got more numerous and more panicked as the Pompton River began to seep under front doors in the darkness as it crested late Sunday night into Monday morning.

About two dozen calls came in after 8:30 on Sunday night, but Hollberg said that evacuations became exponentially more dangerous in the dark, and with all the notice given to residents to evacuate, the township refused to put its emergency workers at risk by performing midnight runs.

"I think that people who haven't been flooded before because it didn't quite make it into their homes didn't heed the (evacuation) warning as closely," Hollberg said.

At dawn on Monday, the rescues resumed, and altogether about 600 homes were ordered evacuated. How many individuals were rescued is still unknown.

The damage was savage. Homes in the Village Area off Jackson Avenue, which floods only during the worst storms, had 4 to 6 feet of water their first levels; their front doors showed dirty high water marks at stomach height on Monday afternoon.

Cars and trucks left overnight featured fogging windows and radiators with sticks and brush jammed into them, and front lawns swayed like seaweed below the waterline as the current ebbed and flowed through the neighborhood.

The south end of town saw similar totals, and even National Guard deuce-and-a-half trucks floundered in the Alexander Avenue area.

'Closed for the season'

PV Park's diving board now rests in the middle of the one giant lake that has absorbed both PV and Woodland Lake, and Hollberg said that the lake is "officially closed for the season."

About 30 residents crowded into the shelter set up at Pequannock Valley Middle School, which functioned throughout the storm. On Monday, however, PV, along with a wide swath of the southern end of town, lost power because a malfunctioning power substation off of Irving Street was surrounded by water, precluding JCP&L from reaching it.

However, the manager said, the township dodged the predicted high winds, and few power outages were reported during the storm.

For once, it will be hard blame the Pompton Lake Dam's floodgates for the township's troubles, even though it has become a favorite target of residents and officials alike since its completion in 2007.

Although Hollberg said that he would have rather had the dam opened and left open in order to avoid the sudden increases in river height that occurred Sunday morning, he said that the overall volume of Pompton Lake is so small that it had "no impact" on the amount of water the township received.

"You get a hurricane that produced 9 inches of rain in 18 hours, we can be ready to react to the effects of the storm, but I don't think there's anything that can be done…that much rain is gonna cause flooding," he said.

Phelan said that he thought the draining of the lake "couldn't have hurt," and that more importantly, it will open the door for future draining ahead of smaller storms.

Had Irene dropped 4 inches of rain instead of nearly 10, the draining might have averted the typical flooding that occurs, he said.

"We got Christie to actually do something, so we can probably go back the next time we know there's going to be a heavy rainstorm…and say, 'You did it one time, now do it again for us,'" he said. "It was a great thing (Christie) did even though it didn't help, but it may help on our 10-year floods going forward."

In the end, however, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported in the township, and attention will turn to helping the recovery, whenever it begins.

It is still too early for damage estimates, but it does not look promising.

Early reports indicated on Tuesday that part of the highway by Woodland Lake was undermined, and a reopening date is yet unclear.

The Newark-Pompton Turnpike bridge into Wayne was still closed Tuesday, and will be until the bridge can be inspected. Few access routes into the town are open, and police are checking licenses before letting people in.

Phelan said the big concern now will be to organize volunteers and get out and help the residents who are enduring once again.

"We're going to do whatever we can to help them…but it's going to be a huge cleanup," he said.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com


http://www.northjersey.com/news/128859683_Irene_sinks_low-lying_areas.html?c=y&page=3