ESSEX COUNTY — After months of protesting a possible solution to Rahway River flooding that would include the construction of a large dam inside South Mountain Reservation, groups like Save Our Reservation and the Rahway Alternative Flood Solutions Alliance are breathing a collective sigh of relief.
A state Department of Environmental Protection official sent a letter July 17 to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers taking the dam option off the table. The proposed dam would have cut across the west branch of the Rahway River to create an approximately milelong, 110-acre detention basin that, when flooded, could take approximately three to four days to empty. The reservation is located in Maplewood, West Orange and Millburn, and borders South Orange.
Since 1999, the NJDEP has been working with the USACE on solutions to flooding from the Rahway River Basin. According to the Rahway River Basin Flood Risk Management Feasibility Study, released to the public by the USACE on March 31, the Rahway River Basin has a drainage area of approximately 81.9 square miles and encompasses Essex, Union and Middlesex counties. The towns of Cranford, Springfield and Millburn suffered extensive flooding following Tropical Storm Floyd in September 1999, the April 2007 nor’easter, and Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011. During Irene, Cranford’s water levels reached the 500-year floodplain; in some areas, entire first floors of buildings were submerged.
In an effort to help these municipalities, on March 31 the NJDEP and the Army Corps released a list of 10 possible alternatives, or options, for flood abatement. Shortly thereafter, due to a benefit-cost analysis, those 10 alternatives were narrowed down to three: Alternatives 4, 6 and 7a.
Alternative 4 proposes modifying the Orange Reservoir outlet and completing 15,500 feet of channel improvements throughout the Rahway River in Cranford, among other improvements; this alternative would cost $68,871,200. Alternative 6 proposes the construction of the dam in the South Mountain Reservation just upstream of Campbell’s Pond, among other improvements; this alternative would cost $108,472,500. Alternative 7a proposes modifying existing structures in Cranford to better withstand flooding by elevating them; this alternative would cost $15,543,000.
A July 17 letter from John Moyle, manager of the Bureau of Dam Safety and Flood Control at the NJDEP, however, asked the USACE to focus only on alternatives 4 and 7a. While Alternative 6, the dam option, is never mentioned in the letter, it is clear that the NJDEP is no longer backing it.
In his letter to Paul Tumminello, chief of the Civil Works Project Management Branch at the Army Corps in New York, Moyle wrote: “In response to the meeting, public comments and review by the Department of Environmental Protection of the seven alternatives, the DEP is requesting that the Corps of Engineers pursue Alternative 4 (channel improvements with modification to Orange Reservoir outlet pipes) and Alternative 7a (10-year nonstructural measures).”
While the NJDEP and the USACE had not yet decided on a course of action, local officials and residents had been publicly voicing their opposition to Alternative 6. The South Orange Board of Trustees and the Maplewood Township Committee had both passed unanimous resolutions against the construction of a dam; Assembly members Mila Jasey and John McKeon, and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr., among others, voiced their disapproval.
Residents have spoken out through letters to the NJDEP and Army Corps, lawn signs proclaiming “No Dam,” a petition and oratory at two public meetings held last month in Cranford and Millburn, respectively.
The Mayors Council on Rahway River Watershed Flood Control unanimously agreed at its April 24 meeting to recommend to the Army Corps to remove Alternative 6 from its list of possible solutions to the flooding.
“The Mayors Council worked closely with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop 10 alternatives that were studied to determine the benefit cost of each,” former Cranford Mayor Dan Aschenbach, who started the Mayors Council, told the News-Record via email earlier this week. “The dam was one of those alternatives. From a hydrology viewpoint, the dam was the strongest alternative and still is. However, the evaluation showed that Alternative 4 had the best benefit-cost ratio,” which Aschenbach said makes Alternative 4 more appealing to the U.S. Congress, which the council hopes will fund the project.
The Mayors Council was formed after Tropical Storm Irene to find solutions to flooding from Millburn to Rahway. The towns represented include Millburn, Maplewood, Springfield, Orange, Union, Kenilworth, Cranford, Garwood, Winfield Park and Rahway.
“The loud opposition to the construction of a dam did cover over the purpose of the overall effort, which was to evaluate alternatives and to identify an acceptable regional plan that could protect residents,” Aschenbach said. “Over the past decade numerous times flooding downstream has been a serious hazard. During Irene, over 1,600 homes, for example, in Cranford were seriously impacted with 400 homes having first-floor damages. Over $100 million of damages were recorded in the watershed,” Aschenbach added, stressing the hardship and tragedy that has befallen towns downstream of the Rahway River.
Local dam opponents view the July 17 NJDEP letter as a triumph.
“The South Mountain Conservancy as well as its affiliated organizations, Save Our Reservation and RAFSA, are very pleased with the NJDEP’s decision last week,” Dennis Percher, chairman of the South Mountain Conservancy Board of Trustees, told the News-Record earlier this week. “From the start we lobbied for Alternatives 4 and 7a as, based on the Corps’ own preliminary analysis, they were economically more feasible and far less destructive to the reservation. We hope to work with the corps, the NJDEP and the Rahway River Association in the further analysis, design and implementation of optimal flood abatement solutions for the Rahway River basin.”
“Everyone should know that, even with the skilled Save Our Reservation team, the successful result would not have occurred without vigorous support from concerned elected officials,” former Maplewood Mayor Fred Profeta, SOR’s co-founder, told the News-Record earlier this week, thanking Congressman Donald Payne Jr., McKeon, Jasey, DiVincenzo former Millburn Mayor Dan Baer, Maplewood Mayor Vic DeLuca, South Orange Trustee Deborah Davis Ford and Millburn Mayor Robert Tillotson. “SOR is grateful to all of these responsive and effective public officials.”
According to Aschenbach, now that the alternatives have been narrowed down, the focus should be on attracting funding and coming up with community-action plans to help lessen the devastating consequences of future Rahway River flooding.
“At this point it seems we have arrived at a place that has gained the support of many in Essex County communities who had expressed concerns about the impact of a dam,” Aschenbach said. “Facing the effort now is the need to get the funding to implement that consensus plan, and citizen support on that is needed. Also, an action plan by the communities upstream on both the east and west branches of the Rahway River, such as South Orange, to strengthen storm water management practices and to implement nonstructural strategies, such as rain gardens, would be a great part of the effort going forward.”