Floodwaters surround Virginia McGinnis’ home in the Rossmoor adult community on April 30 after storms brought 6 inches of rain to the area. PHOTO COURTESY OF VIRGINIA MCGINNIS The Rossmoor Community Association has entered into a tri-party agreement with Middlesex County and Monroe Township in an attempt to decrease flooding in the 55-and-over development.
During the past decade, frequent floods have been causing headaches for homeowners at Rossmoor, according to Rossmoor resident Virginia McGinnis.
“Five times now I have witnessed water coming in through the storm drainage system,” McGinnis said. “Our homes are being flooded, and nobody’s listening to us.”
McGinnis’ frustration reached a fever pitch after a strong April 30 storm brought approximately 6 inches of rain to the township and inundated several areas around her home.
“We knew … for several days that there was a rain event coming with at least 4 inches of rain. The ponds were not lowered, so at [about 6 p.m.] on April 30, water began coming in the drains,” she said.
According to McGinnis, the flooding is a man-made problem that would not occur naturally with proper oversight of water levels in the ponds that dot Rossmoor and its 18-hole golf course.
However, pre-emptive mitigation efforts, which included lowering ponds, were still not enough to curtail floodwaters during the storm, according to Rossmoor manager Jane Balmer.
“We pumped 1.7 million gallons of water from Cedar Brook Pond [on the edge of the Rossmoor property] to the ponds on the golf course between April 29 and the early hours of May 1,” Balmer wrote in an email to Township Business Administrator Wayne Hamilton. “At one point, it was necessary to activate the irrigation system … and lower the ponds on the golf course to accept all this water.”
“The floodwaters did cover portions of some streets and turf areas around the same buildings that have flooded in the past but did not reach any buildings or vehicles,” she added. According to Hamilton, approximately 12 homes in Rossmoor are situated in a floodprone area.
“Over the last five to 10 years, there’s been a history of repetitive flooding there in large rain events. Candidly, part of it is where the houses are sitting. They sit in a low spot,” he said.
Under the tri-party agreement, a new pump station will be constructed, or the existing pump station will be upgraded at the Cedar Brook Pond retention basin in order to decrease floods.
However, McGinnis questioned the practicality of building a new pump station.
“I see no purpose for a pumping station. You have to lower the ponds,” she said.
But, according to the agreement, “funding for this project is limited to the pump stations … and is not sufficient for pond expansion or cleaning.”
The agreement further stipulates that Middlesex County will pay up to $400,000 for the construction of the pump station and Rossmoor will bear all costs, expenses and responsibility for its maintenance and operation.
Balmer could not be reached for comment on whether the pump station improvements would substantially decrease flooding.
However, Hamilton said the tri-party agreement’s plan for a pumping station was not a panacea for Rossmoor’s flooding epidemic.
“I’ll be perfectly candid — this is no permanent solution,” he said. “These people are prone to flooding. There’s little we can do as public officials to completely cure flooding in a flood-prone area just based on the topography of the land. Mother Nature is just too strong.”