Lack of funds dams flood work for New Jersey towns Delaware River communities await money from feds  By Tom Coombe | Of The Morning Call
February 2, 2009

In August, the Delaware River Basin Commission released a plan to help New Jersey communities along the river lessen the impact of flooding.

Six months later, a lot of these towns and townships have yet to embark on their flood-mitigation projects.
They want to do them. They just can't afford them until federal money becomes available.

Take Phillipsburg. Like a lot of river communities, it flooded three times between September 2004 and June 2006. For the flood mitigation plan, Phillipsburg came up with five projects that will cost as much as $2.5 million.

''I don't know what action we can do based on the cost of these things,'' Mayor Harry Wyant said. The projects include modifications to the town's wastewater treatment plant on S. Main Street and a sewage pump facility on Riverside Way.
Together, the projects would cost $900,000 -- or would have in 2006, when Phillipsburg began listing its flood mitigation projects. Richard Hay, the town's fire chief and emergency management director, said he expects costs have risen since then.
Phillipsburg has the most high-priority projects of any town in Warren County. And Warren has more high-risk communities than the other counties on the New Jersey side of the river. Most of them haven't been able to take action to prevent flooding, said Frank Wheatley, the county's emergency management director.
He pointed to Belvidere, whose leadership was approached by residents who wanted the community to go into a repetitive loss program. The town had to say no.
''They were cash-strapped, just like every other municipality,'' Wheatley said.
He could be talking about municipalities all over New Jersey, said Laura Tessieri, a water resources engineer for the DRBC who oversees the flood mitigation projects.
''The costs have been prohibitive to date,'' she said.
Municipal officials are hoping the flood mitigation plan's approval by the Federal Emergency Management Agency will free up grant money for the projects.
''That becomes the critical issue right now, the availability of funding,'' said DRBC spokesman Clarke Rupert.
But municipalities can't expect FEMA to pay for everything, Rupert said. Nearly all the grants available require at least a 25 percent match from the municipalities. Some municipal officials are hopeful the new presidential administration would send stimulus money their way for flood protection, but there's nothing concrete out there saying when that would happen.
The DRBC doesn't have a version of the plan for Pennsylvania, Rupert said. It was originally put forward by some New Jersey environmental groups, then turned over to the DRBC.

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