Officials Put Flood Project on Hold

Cranford township commissioners decided Monday to wait for engineering consulting firm Hatch Mott MacDonald’s report on the stability of levees that would be as part of a flood prevention system to hold in floodwater from the Rahway River before they spend the rest of an environmental loan to build them.

The evaluation is whether the township can shore up or “patch” certain areas now that are not particularly compromised, said Dugan, in order to get a handle on whatever level of funding the township can provide.

“I think it’s just proven at this point that we can wait six weeks from Hatch Mott MacDonald before we make a decision,” said commissioner Kevin Campbell.

Township Engineer Richard Marsden said Cranford has approximately $400,000 remaining from the $9.2 million low-interest loan from the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust (NJEIT) that is to be used towards the Northeast Quadrant Project, the flood-prevention network of levees and pumps on which the township began work in 2006.

“[The council] is reluctant to spend the $400,000 on anything right now until they see what the next step would be in dealing with the potential of the dyke failures in phase 3 and 4 of the Northeast Quadrant Program,” Marsden said.

Marsden said Hatch Mott MacDonald is performing analysis on the dykes in the areas where the United States Army Corps of Engineers are also doing their process of evaluation.

“[Aschenbach’s] concern was that if we start doing too much work before the Army Corps finishes their cost evaluation we may be hurting ourselves,” he said. “Certain work will be done and will be evaluated and the flooding may not be as bad in their evaluation and therefore the cost of damages may not be as high.”

In part of their evaluation process the Army Corps will weigh the feasibility and conception of the project against the township's current state of protection against floodwaters. They will also weigh cost benefits, Marsden said.

“[The Army Corps reports] is a long process and it probably takes about seven years or so,” he said.

Marsden estimates that for 2011 the cost to complete the rest of the main collection system in Phase 2b is about $2.4 million.

Aschenbach said the Army Corps is going to give the council members an answer whether Cranford is qualified for funding very soon.

 “You can’t pass up 65 percent funding [from the federal government],” Aschenbach said. “We had already spent quite a bit already on this and decided that the best route to go was with the federal government because they could fund a substantial part of it.”

 Township zoning official Robert Hudak said one of the things commissioners should keep in mind, however, is that if the comittee does not take action now the costs may rise next year.

 “What happens is that every year these costs keep going up so the money that we’ve put aside for this keeps getting worth less and less,” Hudak said. “From a practical point of view that money is just sitting there losing value more than if we had done it three, four, or five years ago.”

The Army Corps was supposed to study the entire Lenape Park Detention Basis but they only studied Cranford, Aschenbach said.

“It’s very impressive the amount of work [the Army Corps] has done but it’s no conclusion at this point and we need to get to that conclusion point,” he said.

Marsden said that if the entire collection system was not completed that there would be some water in the roadways but no major flooding.

If there is spillover from other streets it will head to Venetia Avenue first because it is the lowest point in that immediate area, he said.

Venetia gets a little more than about two feet of water before it starts to spill over in the street, he said. It then drains down the roadways into the pump station in Riverside Drive where there is a large collection pipe. However this process takes a long time.

The cost of engineering and constructing for the additional piping system needed in Venetia Avenue would amount to about $398,000, Marsden said.

“Right now my task was to evaluate the issue of dividing Phase 2b but at the same time there is a concern to reduce the flooding in Venetia so we may have to put [the additional pipes] in,” he said. “[But] it may not be something that we have to do because completing the main of Phase 2b might resolve some of that more.” 

Funded though a combination of municipal, county and state funds, Cranford has already completed the first two phases of the Northeast Quadrant Project. An express sewer takes in rainwater that previously flowed over properties. It is now collected in a large swale and transported into the river. And a station pumps flood waters that would otherwise flow over the dike back into the river.

Last April, when Cranford experienced its fourth worst storm on record, the waters nearly flowed over the dykes. That storm was considered a “50-year” storm. Implementation of the remaining phases should protect Cranford from more serious stormy weather.