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

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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


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Pequannock manager asks state to lower reservoirs before Irene

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2011  

BY STEVE JANOSKI

STAFF WRITER

As Hurricane Irene comes hurtling up the eastern seaboard, the threat of up to 10 inches of rain has many in the flood-prone township cringing and preparing for the worst yet again.

In a Wednesday interview in his office, Township Manager Dave Hollberg said that although he knew it was too early to make predictions, he knew how "the worst" could come about: a massive overflow from North Jersey's reservoirs, which, according to the NJ Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) website, are already almost full.

Hollberg has been keeping a keen eye on the weather forecasts over the past few days, and he's well aware that a 50-mile swing in the hurricane's eye could be the difference between four and eight inches of rain.

In a place like Pequannock, that's the difference between the typical closing of Alexander Avenue and a catastrophic flood that would inundate the township's roads for the fifth time in 18 months.

He has good reason to worry, said Dave Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University; when Hurricane Floyd struck back in 1999, part of the reason the Passaic River Basin was not damaged as badly as it could have been was that there was a drought, and water levels at the reservoirs were low.

The situation today is reversed, though, and the fact that the land is wet and water levels are high "means that the reservoirs aren't a great help," he said.

"They'll buy a little bit of space, but if we get 10 inches of rain.... we're going to have major flooding," Robinson said.

And the reservoirs are certainly pretty high – those belonging to the City of Newark (such as the Charlotteburg Reservoir in West Milford) directly affect the flow of the Pequannock River, and they're sitting at nearly 100 percent capacity.

Meanwhile, the Monksville and Wanaque Reservoirs, which directly affect the Wanaque River's water levels and are owned by the North Jersey District Water Supply, are about 90 percent full.

Typically at this point in August, these bodies of water are sitting at 75 to 80 percent full, and Hollberg said it will only take a few inches of rain (which Irene nearly guarantees to drop) to top them out as well – and that's when "the worst" starts.

Comparing the situation to a sink with three faucets, he said that the Ramapo and the Pequannock are always flowing strong, but the Wanaque only sees a significant volume of water when the reservoirs feeding it are inundated.

"You turn on two spigots full blast, and it starts to back up," he said. "You turn three of them on full blast... and it's very bad."

Hollberg said that township officials have seen such things occur in the past, and said that river heights skyrocket, sometimes at the rate of a foot an hour, once the reservoirs hit capacity.

He sent a letter off on Tuesday, Aug. 23 to the governor's office that asked Governor Christie to take the "unprecedented action" of ordering as much water as possible be pre-released from the already choked-up reservoirs.

"A prerelease at this time will increase their capacity to absorb rainfall from the approaching storm and allow sufficient time for waters to drain through and out of the river systems before the heavy rains begin later this weekend," the letter stated while pleading its case.

Hollberg knows that even if the state actually acted on the recommendation, it wouldn't solve the problem...but it might help.

"It wouldn't be huge, but for every hundred million gallons that you can get down the river now, today, that's a hundred million capacity that the reservoir has to hold before it starts overflowing in the middle of a heavy rain," he said.

On Friday, township officials found out that the Pompton Lakes Dam was to be opened in order to lower the lake by three feet in order to provide some flood storage, but there was still no word about the reservoirs.

Hollberg's letter had asked for this as well, citing that opening the dam would provide "much needed control data" that could be used to assess the real impacts of the structure on flooding.

Progress has been made in at least one aspect, he said — the Passaic County Office of Emergency Management now notifies township's police desk when the gates are activating, as opposed to past practice that featured no warnings.

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Pequannock braces for the worst

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2011  

BY STEVE JANOSKI

STAFF WRITER

When Mayor Rich Phelan took office on the afternoon of Jan. 1, there was no way for him to predict that within eight months, the township would see three major floods, one noticeable earthquake, and possibly a massive hurricane that could lead to even more flooding.

Tall cranes rose up near the Pompton Lake Dam on Friday, Aug. 26, as work to clean and clear the dam progressed ahead of the pending storm.

Now, somehow, what was once the extraordinary is becoming the routine, and Phelan said on Thursday afternoon that he's "seen this movie three times" and he's getting tired of it.

The script could take a dark turn, however, if Hurricane Irene slams into New Jersey at Category 3 strength, and brings the temperamental Pompton River back into the streets of Pequannock.

A native of Bound Brook, Phelan is no stranger to flooding, and he's anticipating that Irene will dwarf 1999's Hurricane Floyd, and be the worst storm to hit the area since 1984...or maybe even further back.

"If we get 11 inches of rain, you're looking at a hundred-year plus flood," he said.

The township will be employing all sorts of measures to keep citizens alert as the storm intensifies, from updating the website to reverse 911 calls to firemen and police knocking on doors, and officials stress that when authorities tell them to leave, that means it's time to go.

"We believe that the waters are going to rise very quickly once the heavy rains start to come," he said. "Some people want to ride these things out, but this could be different; it could be very ugly....we may not be able to get back in later."

Phelan said on Friday afternoon that on Governor Christie's order, the Pompton Lakes Dam was opened at 12 p.m. in order to drain the lake's water level by three feet and provide some storage, an unprecedented move that many municipalities below the dam have been calling for over the last two years.

Christie had a conference call with Phelan and three other area mayors - Katie Cole of Pompton Lakes, Chris Vergano of Wayne, and Mike DeFrancisci of Little Falls - where he said that he would "take a leap of faith" with them and open the gates.

"At least they're trying to do something," Phelan said. "It took us writing letters and going on TV to get him to react, but he did react."

When asked if he thought opening the gates would truly help, Phelan replied that "anything would help at this moment...anything."

1903...or 1821...all over again?

Dave Robinson, the NJ Climatologist at Rutgers University, said that preparing for the worst might not be a bad idea.

"The potential is there for one of the more destructive storms on record for this state - but we're talking about potential," he said.

Although the storm has been vacillating between a Category 2 and Category 3, Robinson said that it's likely that it will be Category 1 by the time it hits New Jersey, although it might be possible for the storm to maintain it's power until it hits the Jersey Shore if it stays over the Atlantic long enough.

Robinson said that gusts may reach the 75 mph range on the ridge tops, but it would be unlikely for hurricane force winds to be sustained in the North Jersey area.

Unfortunately, it's the rains that will bring the troubles, and Robinson said that with the full reservoirs and a foot of rain, it would be possible to conceive of a scenario that mirrors the 1903 floods, which had the wettest storm on record and caused floods two feet above even the 1984 levels.

There are still many scenarios that could occur that end with Pequannock not getting pummeled, but if the storm continues on its course and the eye comes close to the Jersey Shore it would be a climatological anomaly.

If Irene comes ashore and moves inland as a hurricane, it would be just the third time that's happened, Robinson said, with the others occurring in 1821 and 1903.

This storm would mirror 1821 more, he said, because the 1903 storm came inland at Atlantic City and moved westward towards Trenton; the 1821 version "kind of came up the parkway."

"It's rare, but it's happened before," he said.

A new set of hazards

Regardless of what historical storm Irene ends up resembling, local officials are taking no chances.

Township Manager Dave Hollberg said that Irene's winds may lead to more problems than normal because of its potential for knocking down trees and destroying power lines.

"The combination of flooding with the potential for wind damage, power outages, and perhaps live electrical lines in flooded roads can be deadly if people are not paying attention," he said.

The township has been posting a "Weather Advisory Statement" on the Pequannock website, Peqtwp.org, that is being updated every three to six hours.

Evacuations may come early, and Hollberg said that if it looks like flooding is imminent, the town will be moving people out of the way while the roads are still dry.

"Be prepared," he advised residents. "Have a plan, have a kit, pay attention the weather reports, and if advised to evacuate, evacuate - don't wait."

Bobbi Jo Murphy, the Director of the township's Office of Emergency Management, said that the emergency shelter is in place, and will likely be at Pequannock Valley Middle School on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike.

A state of emergency has been declared by Governor Christie, and Murphy said that the First Aid Squad, Department of Public Works, Police Department and fire companies are on standby.

"The good thing is that we've been through so many floods that residents know what to expect, but I think this is going to be a whole new ballgame," she said.

Murphy expects more citizens at the emergency shelters as extended power outages occur, and people who don't normally see water end up flooded.

Greg Renna, chief of the Pequannock First Aid and Rescue Squad, said that this will be an "all hands on deck" situation for his 50 member crew, which will be ready to respond to medical emergencies that occur during the evacuation process.

The FAS will be mobilized from 7 p.m. Friday night to 7 p.m. Tuesday night, he said, but he's hoping that the storm weakening as it comes up the coast.

"A significant amount of rain could be quite devastating to this township...and its residents," he said.

David James, Chief of Engine Co. No. 1, said that the fire company is storing enough food for about four days in order to feed the 56-man crew while they're standing by or responding.

He reiterated the need for residents to leave when they're told, and was greatly concerned about the potential for downed power lines in the water, which could cut evacuation efforts off if severe enough.

"It adds a whole new danger to our job," he said. "We don't want to say no, but at some point during the storm we're going to have to say no; I can't jeopardize my men's safety because people didn't want to listen to the warnings and get out."

The biggest difference between this storm and previous floods, James said, is that this time, Pequannockis on its own.

The chief had conversations with Morris County's fire officials, and they informed him that there will be no mutual aid coming, no cavalry from Whippany or Boonton riding in to ease the burden on the township's weary firemen.

"They're having the same problems this time as we do," he said. "We're like John Wayne this time, we'll do what we have to do."

On top of this, many state resources that were previously available in March will be pushed further south towards the Shore areas in order to help those communities cope.

James is also concerned that if a major evacuation of New York City occurs, people will be coming this way looking for shelter in hotels that also might have to be eventually evacuated, such as the Best Western/Regency House on Route 23 north.

Bill Pereira, head of the Pequannock Department of Public Works, said that the storm drains are all clear, and the DPW is preparing for trees to come down and barricades to be put up.

"The guys have been through this drill before, so we try to move a little bit ahead of things by putting up barricades where we know they're going to be necessary," he said.

The township's wellhouses and sewer pump stations have also been checked and secured, but Periera said that the possibility of them failing due is "remote."

"That type of thing is not very likely unless we get something that's way off the charts...but the pumps do have to keep running throughout the storm, and it's something that we keep an eye on," he said.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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