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Politics & Government

Committee Considers Options to Resolve Flood Issues

Topics include improving flood-prone Van Dam corridor, repairing Newark flood gates.

The Bloomingdale Borough Flood Mitigation Committee, a group aimed at preventing flood damage during future storms throughout the borough and its surrounding communities, met on Tuesday night to discuss the action it plans to take in the coming months.

One possibility discussed on Tuesday was for the borough to band together with surrounding towns such as Riverdale, Butler, Pompton Lakes and Newark to convince the state to allow for the renewed use and, if necessary, repair of the flood gates at the Charlotteburg Reservoir for use as a retention pen. Previously, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection proclaimed that the flood gates belonged to the city of Newark and made the city discontinue use of the damaged flood gates.

“If the towns all got behind this, the state’s looking for relatively inexpensive ways to mitigate flooding, and that might be one,” said Ross Kushner of the Pequannock River Coalition. “I can’t imagine it would cost that much to repair flood gates.”

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On a more local level, Kushner, borough engineer Paul Darmofalski, and others will be taking a walking tour on Thursday from Brandt Ln. up Van Dam Ave. to Walnut St. to address where silt buildup and erosion has occurred along the Pequannock River over the years, especially since Hurricane Irene.

Although the borough is not permitted to start any construction to improve conditions in the area until Mar. 15, Borough Administrator Ted Ehrenburg said that the evaluation will be a step forward in alleviating flood concerns by making the area more flood-resistant for residents along the Van Dam Ave. corridor.

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“Obviously, we have a lot of residents along the Van Dam corridor,” said Borough Administrator Ted Ehrenburg. “I’d be shocked if there are residents that are complaining (about flooding) all these years who say, ‘oh no, you’re not driving across my property to get back there.’”

Ehrenburg stated that the borough is looking at contractors to help with the flood prevention project and is eager to get started.

“Paul is working diligently so we can move forward, and we will have at least (Abaco Construction Corporation of Lakewood) in the game here moving this forward,” Ehrenburg said. “We put money aside, and we weren’t kidding when we said we were going to do something about it.”

This makes Thursday’s walking tour very important for the implementation of this project.

“I think once they come back (from the walking tour), we’ll have feedback which direction want to go and we can let people who do this for a living do what they do,” Ehrenburg said. “We want to get some bang for our buck. People want to see something happen, not just lip service.”

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