Submitted by Gina Steele
I attended the last Mayor and Council Meeting to review the presentation from Trout Unlimited which the town may consider in hopes of redirecting the flow of dirt and sediment from Lenape Bridge to the Train Trestle.
While this clean up would help the condition of the river and improve wildlife, Trout Unlimited made it perfectly clear it would not have much of an effect on the flooding.
The members of the Mayor and Council were concerned regarding the cost of this project, and did not seem too hopeful that there were any grants to provide funding for this particular type of river work.
According to articles that I found online from NorthJersey.com, it seems as though our neighbors in Pompton Lakes, Riverdale and Wayne received a substantial amount of money ($380,000 grant in February 2012) to subsidize work they had done. They were able to hire a union contractor to remove over 1500 trees, and strategically place tons of rock to reinforce the river bed. They were praised in mounting a defense against recurrent flooding.
I don’t know if anyone was advocating for Oakland to be included in the DEP’s 15-point plan to mitigate flooding in Passaic, Bergen and Morris counties so we could be eligible for funding. It was noted that the borough of Pompton Lakes was scheduled to receive more than $11 million from both state and federal grants to tear up and elevate homes.
The Oakland Mayor and Council also had a presentation from the Land Conservatory at the same meeting as Trout Unlimited, and the Conservancy proposed a plan to buyout the homes in Crystal Lake that have been repeatedly flooded.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/143790946_Crews_work_to_de-snag_Ramapo_River.html
The representative of Trout Unlimited was very insightful regarding the reasons why homes flood now, and had not in the past. The TU representative mentioned the runoff of Rt. 287 and also the newly constructed development upstream.
I am going to assume that he was speaking of the Ramapo River Reserve. The was the big– white–elephant in the room as far as the Mayor and Council were concerned.
While it may not have been a decision of this Mayor and Council to approve the building of a substantial residential development that would forever change the footprint of the river and it’s absorption rate, I feel as though it is the Borough of Oakland’s legal and moral responsibility to budget money towards the clean-up of the river. Debris and other materials that would restrict the flow of the river, and prevent additional flooding in the future, should be removed.
Please contact me – or join me at the next Mayor and Council meeting on May 8th- to let them know that Oakland – like our neighboring towns- needs to find the money to clean up and maintain the river. The Town of Oakland has limited financial resources to protect our beautiful natural resources, and it’s time to catch up to our neighbors– and it is time to repair the damage caused by the poor planning of previous administrations.
-Gina Steele
mycolebaby@hotmail.com
I still don’t understand how it is that Oakland can never seem to get ANY funding to address the flooding problems along the river. In the 14 years I’ve lived in this town, I can’t recall a time when the borough ever got any funding from any source to address this problem which is getting worse each year.