LAMBERTVILLE: Floodgate project to protect properties

By John Tredrea, Special Writer
   LAMBERTVILLE — Twenty-nine homes and five commercial properties on North Union Street and Arnett Avenue will benefit from a floodgate project expected to be operational by December or January, said water resource engineer John Miller, a city resident who came up with the idea for the project during a 2006 flood.
   Mr. Miller, of the firm Princeton Hydro, worked on a successful federal grant application that will pay for 75 percent of the $194,467 project. The city will pay the $48,616 balance.
   A Flood Mitigation Assistance Grant from FEMA filed by the state of New Jersey with Lambertville a sub-applicant is the source of 75 percent of the money needed to build the project.
   Lambertville Mayor David Del Vecchio also credited Congressman Rush Holt for helping the city land the FEMA grant.
   ”I think this grant is a bargain for the federal government,” Mayor Del Vecchio said Friday. “For about $200,000, they’re improving the quality of life for 29 residences and five commercial properties that have quite a few businesses in them.”
   Mr. Miller, a Lambertville resident who said his Elm Street home is not in the floodplain and so will not benefit from the project, said the floodgate will address back flooding of Ely Creek from the Delaware River caused by severe storms.
   ”Work will start on it next week,” Mr. Miller said Friday. “The manufacture of the floodgate itself isn’t expected to be complete until December or January. All the other work on the project will be done by then. Once we get the gate and install it, the system will be operational. The total amount of work to be done on this takes about 10 days, but those days will be spread out because we have to wait for manufacture of the gate and other items.”
   He said that, because of the topography of the city in the Cherry Street area, the floodgate will not provide total protection to flooding caused by a 100-year storm. However, it should be able to handle flooding of the magnitude caused by storms in 2005 and 2006, which were 75-year and 60-year storms respectively, he said.
   He said the basements of 29 homes were flooded by those storms, and the Canal Center, in one of the five business properties, had its first floor flooded as well.
   ”The flooding of Ely Creek has been a real problem for Canal Center,” Mr. Miller said.
   Ely Creek is in the northern part of Lambertville while Swan Creek is in the southern part. Swan Creek also has caused flooding problems over the years, and the city is awaiting a response from FEMA on a grant application to deal with that issue.
   Mr. Miller said that with the use of the floodgate along with a pump that can be brought to the floodgate site by the city’s Public Works Department, “the Delaware River can be kept from backing up into the creek.”
   The system will divert water to a manhole cover that exits to the Delaware River, thus bypassing the residential and commercial properties that have been plagued by flooding in the past.