Its use was demonstrated May 30
By John Tredrea, Special Writer
LAMBERTVILLE — It’s up and running and hopefully, city officials say, it never will be needed. But if needed, it should make a big difference to 29 residential and five commercial properties on North Union Street and Arnett Avenue in Lambertville.
It’s the Ely Creek floodgate project. It’s done, and its use was demonstrated May 30, with Mayor David Del Vecchio, other officials and residents on hand.
”We saw how the floodgates and pump worked,” the mayor said. “It’s an important project, and I’m glad to see it completed. Hopefully we’ll never have to use it. But if we do, it can make a big difference to the quality of life for people in that part of town.”
Water resource engineer, John Miller, a city resident, 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.
”Rush Holt was a big help to us in getting the federal grant,” the mayor said.
Mr. Miller, who said his Elm Street house 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. A Flood Mitigation Assistance Grant from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency),.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.
Mr. Miller said that, because of the topography of the city in the Cherry Street area, the floodgate will not provide total protection from 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 that 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.
He said that, with 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.