We hope no hard feelings come of Manville Councilman Richard Onderko’s visit and comments to the Hillsborough Township Committee last week.
Mr. Onderko, who seems to be honestly earnest and sympathetic to the plight of his flood-ravaged fellow borough citizens, pleaded to his Hillsborough counterparts to have some sympathy for their besieged neighbors when making planning decisions that have repercussions that reach beyond township boundaries.
He made a similar plea the week before, he said, to the Franklin Township Committee, when he attended its meeting to ask about what appears to him and fellow residents to be an ever-rising levee along the Millstone River.
Residents have asked him what was going on, fearing the effects of channeling future high water downstream into Lost Valley and all of Manville, the bottom of the hydrological bowl.
In Hillsborough, Mr. Onderko appeared critical of two major housing developments approved by Hillsborough in recent months that drain into Royce Brook, and, ultimately into Manville.
Hillsborough Mayor Carl Suraci told Mr. Onderko that the township’s hands were tied in approving the Gateway at Sunnymead and Green Village developments because they were tied to long-standing affordable housing legal commitments.
In the Hillsborough appearance, Mr. Onderko made a mistake and said runoff from the removal of thousands of trees to accommodate the Green Village development would send more water rushing toward Manville.
He learned the next night that shouldn’t be true. Municipal land use law, changed a few years back, mandates that new projects must be engineered to allow no more runoff to leave a property than in its pre-development state. That’s why you see large detention drainage basins, often fenced off, by any building site.
Mr. Onderko may have violated some unwritten rule that local politicians don’t take their colleagues to task in public. It may especially be true when everyone is of the same political persuasion.
Mr. Onderko apologized this week. His intent wasn’t to speak ill of other officials, he said; he was just representing what his citizens have asked and questioned.
Nevertheless, his point is valid. Flooding issues are a regional concern, and we hope the newly formed Raritan-Millstone Rivers Flood Control Commission can negotiate multi-municipal cooperation to mitigate some of the problems.
If that sometimes means being critical of others, well, the means sometimes justifies the end.

