Residents of Mill Ridge Road may be able to look forward to a drier rainy season after the DPW uses a New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) grant to address flooding endemic to the area.
Three to five times a year, the street floods, making passage impossible for people who live in the area and Secaucus High School, and in extreme cases, causes damage to the 25 to 30 houses that line the street.
Wednesday, the NJMC voted to grant $150,000 to the township to upgrade the area’s flood control system as part of its Municipal Assistance Program.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time,” said Council Member Michael Grecco. “I’m glad they’re finally getting around to it.”
According to Public Works Director Michael Gonelli, the road has flooded three times already this winter, although not to the point of causing damage. The average flood can be up to three feet deep. Gonelli has only seen damage caused six times in the 30 years that he has worked for the town.
“The Mill Ridge Road area was always a very low area,” said Mayor Dennis Elwell.
The NJMC became aware of the problem because the Army Corps of Engineers is studying the 42 acres of marshlands adjacent to Mill Ridge Road as a wetlands restoration site.
“During the whole discussion of what to do to improve the site, flooding was one of the projects,” said Gonelli.
While the Army Corps’ project was held up because of planning delays, the NJMC decided to work with the town to address the problem.
The way the flood control works now, four storm lines, or catch basins, drain excess water into the marsh. When it rains and water levels in the wetlands are high due to the tide, water can splash back onto the street.
The NJMC grant will pay to install a single drainage pipe in the wetlands behind the houses into which all the storm lines will drain. The pipe will redirect water to a pump house located by the school.
“This will allow us to close off the outflows and pump it back into the river,” said Mayor Dennis Elwell.
The town will not have to contribute any money, but may contribute in-kind labor instead, including manpower and equipment.
Gonelli expects that the construction will begin in the springtime and will last for six to eight weeks. He says that residents can expect minimal inconvenience and no road closings during construction.
A district-wide initiative
Last September, the NJMC presented a mathematical flood simulator developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called the Hackensack River Basin Model. The simulator was also funded by the NJMC. Using satellite images and computer modeling, the Army Corps can determine exactly what causes the flooding, and what will solve the problems.
Previously, results of intervention were hit and miss, and were not known until flooding occurred again. Mill Ridge Road is one of the first two flooding areas being fixed under the initiative
Another $150,000 was authorized for repairs to the Rutherford Gates to address flooding on Route 17.
“We prioritized the areas in that flooding model based on severity and impact,” said Gonelli, who is also on the NJMC board.
Mill Ridge Road was hit especially hard during the Nor’easter of 1992, where every house experienced damage, including one house whose basement filled with seven feet of water. “The house had a sunken driveway,” said Gonelli. “Since then, they got rid of the sunken driveway and filled in half the basement.”
Previous attempts to solve the flooding problem by installing floodgates have proved inadequate.
According to Gonelli, debris trapped in the floodgates creates a maintenance nightmare. The current flood mitigation plan has been approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Other flooding areas
Secaucus, surrounded by water on all sides, is essentially an island. It is surrounded by the Hackensack River, Penhorn Creek and Cromakill Creek.
The DPW has a flood committee consisting of Gonelli, the town engineer, and one councilman from each district.
The federal Economic Development Association recently granted $1 million for the reconstruction of the Golden Avenue pump station, which is in planning now and is expected to be completed before the end of the year.