CRANBURY: Township to present dam plans to county

David Kilby, Managing Editor
   CRANBURY — The township is just about ready to present to Middlesex County two separate plans for the Brainerd Lake dam renovation project.
   There will be a meeting Feb. 27 with county representatives and a hydraulic consultant, who will ask questions about the dam project.
   One of the main topics they will discuss is the shape of the spillway. Right now there are plans for one that’s oval-shaped and one that’s rectangular-shaped.
   William Tanner, township engineer, said the project is a renovation of the dam, not a flood control project. After Hurricane Irene, residents began asking if there’s any way to design a dam that would prevent Main Street from flooding as much as it did after the hurricane.
   ”Even if we decided to upgrade it into a flood control project, Irene is larger than the largest storm we would have even considered doing that project for,” Mr. Tanner said.
   He added, “No one was looking at this and saying how do we stop flooding? Some of what we’ll be doing will stop minor flooding. But you get to Irene, all bets are off. It came at a time when the ground was already saturated. The intensity of the storm was bad enough.”
   Mr. Tanner also emphasized the dam is not in desperate need of repairs and not in danger of breaking.
   ”Every couple years, we’re required to inspect the dam and issue a report on the condition,” he said. “The dam is sound as it exists. There’s no catastrophic failure that’s going to happen in the future. Over time, there are certain things that start to weaken the structure.”
   He said the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection gets ahead of the curve so it doesn’t have to intervene when there’s a serious problem.
   ”This is totally precautionary,” he said. “We have to get back on track. This was not a flood project. It was never an eminent danger. We’re getting to it before there are problems.”
   Both the oval-shaped and rectangular-shaped dams would have 100-foot spillways, which means 100 feet of wall the water spills over.