Mayor David Del Vecchio will be a member of the panel, and state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell will chair the group.
By: Mae Rhine
Two Lambertville residents, Mayor David Del Vecchio and Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell, were named Monday to a new state task force charged with studying and coming up with solutions to reduce the impact of flooding in New Jersey communities.
Mayor Del Vecchio said Mr. Campbell "talked to me right away" and asked him if the task force was something he would like to serve on.
"Because, obviously, we have to look at a corrective approach to what’s happened," Mayor Del Vecchio said. "It just can’t happen every six months or every other year."
Lambertville estimates its damage from flooding early this month to be around $26 million. Also badly hurt were other Delaware River towns New Hope and Stockton, with damages not estimated for those towns at this time.
All three communities suffered extensive damages seven months earlier from flooding caused by Hurricane Ivan.
"I don’t begin to sit here today and know what the situation is," the mayor said. "We need to get a bunch of people together, some experts and mayors affected (by the flooding), and see what we can do. I’m sure people in Pennsylvania probably share this opinion."
In a prepared statement, acting Gov. Richard Codey said, "The flood victims from this month’s storm showed tremendous resilience. We owe it to them to find ways to reduce future flooding and to establish safeguards for the areas most affected by heavy rains."
The 14-member task force is comprised of professional engineers, public and elected officials, educators, planners and other who have firsthand knowledge about flooding issues. Mr. Campbell was named chairman of the task force.
"Although natural disasters can’t be stopped, we can take steps to ensure that when the next flood occurs, we minimize the impact it has on our residents," Mr. Campbell said.
Mayor Del Vecchio said the DEP will supply some staff for the task force.
"Which is important, because, obviously, we’re lay people," Mayor Del Vecchio said. But "we know, as people, how it affects us."
But Mr. Del Vecchio felt Lambertville’s problems were not just from the Delaware River. He said only one block along Lambert Lane suffered damage from the river overflowing its banks.
"From my perspective, and I don’t know what the answer to this is, we flood from the river and two creeks," Mayor Del Vecchio said Alexauken Creek near Lambertville Public School and Swan Creek, along South Union Street.
Flooding from Swan Creek severely damaged the city’s new Justice Center at the site of the former Acme Market, at 25 S. Union St.
Mayor Del Vecchio wants to find out if "any engineering solution could be applied there to lessen the impact" from both creeks overflowing.
"Obviously, I care about the river, which we have to deal with; I’m not downplaying that," he said. "But the rest, if there’s a way we can work with DEP to come up with an engineering concept to make the two creeks less of an impact."
Regarding the state task force, he added, "It’s in everyone’s interest to do this."
The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission released information Monday on damages to its bridges. It estimated the total cost of damages could reach $1.5 million.
There was minor damage reported for the Stockton-Center Bridge, Pa., and New Hope-Lambertville free bridges, including broken railings, missing conduit and electrical junction boxes, dislocated steel brackets, dislodged north tie rod support connections, damaged sidewalk panels and bent utility conduits.
Also serving on the state task force is John Miller of Princeton Hydro, the engineer who designed the city’s state-mandated stormwater management plan.
Also on the task force are Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer; Phillipsburg Mayor Harry Wyant; Carol Collier, executive director of the Delaware River Basin Commission; Lt. Col. Robert J. Ruch, district commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia district; Harry Patterson, executive director of the New Jersey Water Supply Authority; Cleighton D. Smith, consulting engineering, Dewberry; Liz Johnson, chief operating officer, ISLES; Greg Westfall, water resource planner, U.S. Department of Agriculture; James K. Mitchell, chairman of Rutgers Department of Geography; Maya van Rossum, director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network; and Jeff Scott, a Frenchtown Planning Board member.
"While we’re getting good at dealing with it from an emergency response point of view, I’d rather not be practiced at it," Mayor Del Vecchio said. "There’s got to be some solution to deal with this to make it less of an issue. My focus will be what we can do in terms of curbing developments" as well as the city’s two creeks.
"This is a task force I don’t mind being on, because, hopefully, something will come out of it to make our lives a little better. Flooding is such a devastating way to lose property, and it leaves such a mess."

