Delaware River Towns at High Risk Right Now.  Flood may be immanent depending on the weather.  By Chris D'Annunzio

HC - Thanks to Sharron at Deni Legal in Flemington for bringing this to our attention.

As we all know, the Delaware river has tossed its banks three times recently creating enormous damage, taking people from their homes, and generally creating anxiety every time the water starts to rise.
Initial knee jerk reaction blamed overpopulation for the problem. People felt that the amount of pavement was not letting water soak into the ground and that was given as the reason for the sudden amount of regular flooding.

Now the reason for flooding has been traced to reservoirs in New York State. Evidently the state has been keeping reservoirs near or over capacity levels instead of gradually lowering them. As a result, when a large rainfall comes, too much water is released into the Delaware causing havoc downstream.  Many people on the river were told that the reservoir levels were now being held at lower levels to protect against such floods.
The Delaware is currently running high due to snow melt form the north and with April showers on the forefront the statistics are shocking.  If you go to www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/maplevels.html  you'll see that the Cannonsville Reservoir is currently at 105% capacity. 

What does this mean? It means if we get one of those three-day spring downpours right now, it is likely that the reservoirs will let loose and towns from Belvidere to Easton to Lambertville and New Hope and Trenton will again be underwater and in serious trouble.
 
Where are our state legislators???   Truly, how many serious issues directly effect the people in our county like this?  Sure they pass legislation for this, that and the other thing which we don't care about. Where is the help when it is essential and necessary?? The people along the river are currently in a very serious situation and you wonder just how much more they can take.

If you go to the website for the Delaware River Conservancy www.drconline.org, on May 10th, the Delaware River Basin Commission will be passing resolution, #18, which many people thought had some type of a safety net built into it by way of keeping the reservoirs from operating at 100% capacity.  Apparently there is nothing in place to require the reservoirs to keep their levels down

This is a serious problem that needs immediate attention!!