yeah ready yes good evening everyone at this time we're going to call our meeting to order can we all please stand and salute the flag pledge algi the flag of the United States of America stands na indivisible at this time I'm going to ask our clerk Jamie to please read the sunshine statement call the rooll be advised that proper notice has been given by the township Council in accordance with the Sunshine Law in the following manner noticed advertised in the Brilliance County Times and Camden carrier post on January 25th 2024 and posted on the bulletin board on the same date Mrs Z Ado here Mr Smith Mr Jenny here Mr lion here Mr barell here thank you this time I'm going to hand it off to our mayor mayor cther bone real quick well good evening everybody um just so that everyone uh what I'm going to do tonight is just kind of introduce uh the folks that are here for the most part it's great to see everyone here with us uh and and let you know that this is going to be a conversation that uh will be led pretty much by uh council president Tyler Burell uh there's a PowerPoint presentation to help guide us through this there's going to be a number of things that will be talked about from the past and what's currently happening and the future so uh this is uh I think we've said the Ed the expression we're not going to sugarcoat this we're going to tell you the truth as it is and hope that um uh everyone will be able to get a better understanding of what's Happening here so we have of course our members of council you know council president Tyler Burell uh Tom lion is our vice president of council Lyn Jenny is councilman at large and Nikki aadu is actually the ward one council person who is the person that is that is uh tasked with dealing with anything that is uh word one related so um where we are right now we also have just so that you understand who who the people that that may be speaking the two gentlemen on my left are Ed who was our Township engineer many of you may have seen him uh he represents CME who was Art just go like this did you do that okay uh and and he is uh with the firm CME they're the people that we've hired as our engineers and have been for some time and then he's he has taken the opportunity to bring his boss so his his boss is Mike and is with us right here and of course uh many of you have had interaction with Joe bolina who was our Township administrator and then hidden behind Ed is our attorney Bob so also the folks from Blue acres are here uh will be available for questions perhaps if if something comes up during the uh event and uh hopefully we'll get a better understanding of where we are and what what we've been trying to do and at this time uh without any further Ado let's get started I'll I'll introduce council president Tyler Burell Tyler you could Step Up U good evening everybody I want to thank everyone for joining us today tonight for this okay this is going to work good uh for our conversation this is designed to be a town hall style meeting okay um here's the outline of what we're going to go over okay the first thing we're going to talk about are the underlying issues because I think we need to understand the problems before we can figure out the solutions okay and it's not here to insult anyone's intelligence but we need to all make sure we're on the same page about that okay next we're going to analyze the potential mitigation measures and then we're going to take a look at the Historical timeline and at the end of that we'll then entertain questions or comments okay I I want to be clear as the mayor started earlier I I'm we put this on to be upfront with you guys to be honest transparent and truthful about what's going on and what the path forward looks like okay there were some facts in this presentation that are not great facts okay we didn't come up with them they were reported on we'll explain all of that right I'm I'm not here to scare anyone I'm not here to put blame on any or anything like that I want to make that clear but we are here to be open and transparent you will never no one in this town will say that Tyler Burell was not honest okay I will not let that happen so that's the point of today okay I promise you I'm joking about it now but you're not going to like some things I say and I don't like them either right and I want to make clear everybody up here understands and empath empathizes with you guys about what's going on right I mean it's it's not our homes but we understand right if we had a perfect solution to all of this I promis I wish we all weren't here and it was fixed and we didn't have to have these kind of conversations but we're here today to start an open dialogue Okay the reason why we're having these conversations now and we didn't have them maybe four or five years ago was now we have the Army Corps of Engineers involved and we'll talk about how that works down the road right but there's an impetus and a timeline to discuss moving forward I'm going to ask we all be professional and adults in the room about this I know there's a lot of emotion and rightfully so but please let's keep we're going to have the presentation let's be respectful of the presenters the engineers who are with us tonight we'll go through the presentation at that time we'll then entertain comments or questions okay soes that sound good okay first we got to understand two issues down here first I want to take a moment just to talk about the issues generally okay this is not meant to be um I just think it's important that we all understand the issues before we talk about what Solutions we have from there okay so first we got to frame these issues in two ways it's the best way to think about this we have the burm itself right and then we have the storm water drainage it's very easy to just throw all of these together and say we have a flooding problem right which we do but it's important as we move forward to understand there's distinctions with these things um and it's frustrating but it's important that we take note so first issue is the BM right um and everybody knows this this is not breaking news um the issue with the burm we have a the the erosion issue this is a picture from 2012 11 um you can clearly see the erosion on the BM there's no hiding that fact okay like I said this is not breaking news the second issue is you know the BM height the water breaching over the burm when it's high tide the storm that we had in January with the winds and you get an 11 I think 11.9 um you know high tide it's going to breach the berm right so that's sort of a second issue but you got to understand there's the erosion issue then the burm height okay and we're going to get into these and the Solutions in a little bit but I just want to frame everything right now second issue remember we had the storm water drainage okay when it rains a lot or if it breaches it's not going to go back into the water right it's going to hang out there for a while part of that issue is caused by these things and we'll go over them in more detail we have low G geography there uh water can't go out of the outflows which I'll explain in a second because of gravity uh it's back blowing and sea level rising okay so those are the two issues there's this diagram that I didn't come up with um Noah did so the feds came up with this diagram but it's a very good illustration of what's going on if you if you learn one thing about me tonight it's I like pictures so there's a lot of pictures here okay so it helps me I'm a very visual person so this is an example here you can see the river is on the left got this the pointer this is all good right there's the BM there you can see the pipe underneath the house when it rains water comes down goes out this pipe and into this a storm water goes out into the the river right that's how this is supposed to work the problem is if we go to the next slide this is what happens in Riverside Park more often than not right is there is water that's coming raining we have a high tide and what that creates is this water here near this car for example is not going to drain out this outflow because it's not going to go Upstream right and that's part of the problem while you have to wait until high tide recedes and then all that water starts to go out okay so this is kind of The Perfect Storm illustration of what happens down there um on occasion and then ultimately what we had in January was when this water breaches over the BM you got to kind of those both those issues merge together and you have this this storm that we just had a couple weeks ago okay there's a simulation we'll have this powerpoint online I don't think we need the simulation tonight right it's there's a simulation that lets you play around with that that the federal government made and you can adjust the sea levels and things and see stuff um but I don't think we need it for tonight the next thing this is still in our big bucket here about understanding the issues before we get to the solutions because I know that's what everyone really really cares about but I want I'm gonna hand it off to engineer Ed in a second we're about to talk now for a couple slides about this 2017 study that was performed uh this was a federal agency the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission I just call it DV there a lot of acronyms tonight what they did was they looked at Delan we cooperated with them for um Jim who used to be our engineer with this firm and Jeff our former um administrator met with them on multiple occasions and gave them data and things and these folks are engineers and scientists from the federal government and they study Delan this report by the way we're about to tell you we didn't come up with anything in this report okay so don't do not shoot the messenger you can Google this and Del Ran and it comes up the first thing and I if you meet me afterwards I can give you the link too this report is available for everybody to read okay um so I'm going to hand it off to Jim and like I said just we're going to talk about the solutions to this or the mitig efforts later but we need to First understand the Baseline issues and this report does a great job of doing that Ed do you want to talk about that sure uh thank you Tyler so to pick up where Tyler left off at the recommendation of the Army Corps back in 2012 when the township met with them there was a recommendation that the township joins a study so dvrpc through the funding from NOA um had already been performing a study along coastal regions within the state so the township then got involved in uh the study and ultimately in 2017 there was a vulnerability report that was issued um by dvrpc so some highlights within that report are what are anticipated in in the future based off of scientific data that's been prepared um so I'm going to list off a couple of things that are seen up here on the slides so since 1900 sea level has risen approximately 1 foot within the title Delaware River which the Confluence of that is at the ran cookus Creek which is where Riverside Park uh resides now it's projected by 2050 that we're going to see a 1.4 foot rise from the current sea levels and then by 2100 we're anticipating a 3.3 foot uh rise in in sea levels now this is all data that is within the report and within the study that was done by dvrpc um one of the quotes within there is absent of any changes within the storm it's anticipated a twoof foot uh rise and sea levels um in New Jersey is going to be experienced by 2100 which would more than triple the frequency of dangerous storms um within the region slide please so on on the uh slid right here is the one of the analysis of the scenarios that was run is a category 2 event with the anticipated sea level rise in year 2100 so the light blue that you can see here I know it's difficult to see on the screen is the anticipated area that would be impacted by flooding in this this projected storm so if you can the so right here is your projected limit based off of the study of where flooding would would take place now to the this one down okay so also included in the report is they did an analysis of the entire Township so it's more than just the Riverside Park neighborhood however that is the area that was focused on mainly within this uh report done by dvrpc now in in line with that this is the current firm map for the area so you have an ae10 Zone which is in light blue in the Riverside Park neighborhood so that is your 1% annual chance or your 100-year storm event which is a 1% chance to happen annually um within the neighborhood so the blue is over here which is what anticipates it now that doesn't mean it's a 1% chance to happen this year next year and so forth there's just a 1% chance yearly and it can be more frequent and that does not incorporate the other events that may happen that may over top the burm that is within the neighborhood so this is strictly the 100-year event that is anticipated to be a level of 10 which would get to these these limits based off the data from the federal government this yeah so the the report this is the not so pretty part of the report and the reason we're we're mentioning this report is because if we want to build and remedies and solutions for this this report is the Baseline that map you just saw I know we're all like uh you know this is so far away none of us will be in this room room will be there I will not be there for this 2100 but this is what they use the engineers when they're Building Solutions right so if we want to build a wall down there right this is the map they're going to look at when they're trying to figure out what what level of water do we have to stop so this is kind of a baseline of what's going to be used moving forward so here are some of the recommendations there's six pages of recommendations so we just picked a couple of them one of them is what we're doing tonight is that we need to have candid conversations about the flooding down there and the solutions and the path forward okay and that's ultimately what we plan to do moving forward uh many of you signed in when you um entered here which we appreciate so now our Emergency Services folks and we have your contact information if we ever want to have this meeting again we can hit you guys up directly and keep you keep you formed so we do appreciate that um doing that some of the things they recommend is zoning code anytime there's a new building down there it needs to be elevated um they also recommend um mitigation um Capital Improvements to plan for hazardous mitigation which they also recommend at the same time they warn against long-term capital projects in the area that will be affected by sea level rise in 30 to 50 years and they also talk about unfortunately that some of the homes may need to be purchased and that's through cons conservation easements or um the blue Acres folks who are here with us tonight whatever that may be okay so that's also a propos solution for them okay so in summary here's the root problems right we have rising sea level right and that's just not a Delan problem that's a problem for everybody we a high water table over there geography it's very clear in this picture you can see River Drive is below the um the burm and it's it's also below the high tide at certain points the high tide is also higher than our storm water pipes right so water is not going to go uphill water doesn't work that way and I think the main thing here that's what I think is most frustrating for us specifically and I'm sure for you guys is this is Army Corps jurisdiction okay what that means is that if Gary and I had $5 million sitting here and we wanted to do something tomorrow we couldn't even do it okay we had the book right here with the plan and Ed had it ready to go the Army Corps has to say yes or no all right so that's why we're waiting on the Army Corp I know you hear a lot of the army Corp the Army Corps the Army Corp it's not because we want to work with the Army Corps they work so slow I wish I never had to work with them but unfortunately they're the ones it's their jurisdiction okay so because it's a Title Zone just like LBI or C or Avalon it's their jurisdiction so that's why we need to work with them okay uh I keep losing my stuff all right so next this is kind of where the rubber meets the road for every everybody is how can we mitigate the flooding there's important distinction and the engineers reminded us when we prepared this presentation why does that not say solution and I know I use the word solution a lot so they'll probably yell at me but there is no 100% solution to flooding I promise you that now you can ask the engineers you can ask the federal government everybody if you want no water in your property there is no possible way anyone's going to ever do that it's just not possible based on the geography there it's on a flood plane okay I'm not here to anybody about that but that's the truth right so if you want 100% no flooding we're not going to be able to deliver that and I will fail you every time okay I'm honest about that and there's nothing else right that am I okay so we're going to talk about ways to mitigate that right and there is paths to mitigate that right that's what we're here to talk about so this is just a recap the burm issue we're all well aware of that so this is where the rubber meets the road okay we're going to spend decent amount of time on this slide and I'm gonna also rely on Ed so there's two things to note step one in our plan this is our plan moving forward so if this is the one slide you probably want to remember it's this one okay and we will provide these slides later on um for everybody if you want Step One is the stream bank erosion right so that's addressing the burm erosion okay that was one of our first issues we talked about right it's been eroding we got the pictures of that that's where we're at now so in 2016 right in 2016 the township sent a request to the Army Corps but we've been lobbying them we're going to go over the timeline but we've been lobbying them for many many years we sent formal requests after we got a lot of things in line for step one and two we said what they do is they see this section 14 and section 208 that's the where the federal funding is that's the legislation that's some inside you know weed stuff there but we sent two letters and said hey Army Corps we need your help to to stabilize the eroding Bank okay and we also said we need your help to fix the flooding we need flood mitigation effort it's your jurisdiction help us out okay they ignored us on the Second Step frankly we don't know why and we are trying to figure that out as we speak but the first step here in green we got What's called the federal interest determination in 2021 it's a fancy way of them saying in a long report we're here to help you we want to we want to look into this project for the erosion okay so they said Township we're here to help the township there's a cost sharing that has to go with that we have to pay for the study so there's this is the yellow uh the orange slide is the feasibility study right so we paid for what it 10% of that 10 what is it 50% of that study we put it in that Year's budget it's like $100,000 and the truth is they just ask us for more money to do it as of last week okay so the feasibility study the federal government gets gather the Army Corps and they look at the erosion situation they're a lot smarter than all of us and they're going to sit and figure out what options we have right a feasibility study is what options do we have so they're going to get in the room they do a bunch of modeling and things that are above my pay grade and then they're going to come back to us at some point and say Here's the three things you can do here's the two things you can do I don't know how many options they're going to give us right option one is this much option two is this much option three maybe do nothing we don't know what this what they're going to propose okay and remember the reason why we need this is because it's their jurisdiction we can't ignore this process I wish we could it make this a lot easier so we are right now in the feasibility study on the stream bank erosion right now that is where we sit okay the money we have funded the project our portion of the project we're waiting for the Army Corps to start on that and to get moving they move unfortunately at a glacier Pace it's the federal government we asked them Ed was on a call with them yesterday and Joe was on the call and we asked them point blank what takes so long to move these projects forward we have people who want resolution and they said verbatim it's the federal government it's the pace that we we move at so that's where we're at ultimately eventually they're going to give us some sort of solution design whatever that may be then we'll have to fund that solution right or that mitigation effort and then ultimately one day I'm hoping someone will stand here and this will be green and we can say we reestablished the stream bank right it is strong and I'll show you what that looks like by the way this is the engineering schematic of what that would look like okay um you're just Shoring that up so that it doesn't keep eroding you may say I had a light bulb moment moment a couple weeks ago when the engineers and I were working on this you may say well why can't we just let's just raise the BM right away who gives a excuse my language about the erosion right let's stop the water from coming in right that's the first thing we need to worry about that's what I asked Ed right and the qu the the response I got was that and it's true is that if you spend a lot of money first of all the Army Corp has to prove it but if you spend a boatload of money and raise that BM and it's eroding underneath in two or three four years it's all going to be washed away right so it's kind of sobering in that you have to first the first step has to be stabilizing the burm right you have to have a good foundation before you can build on top of that right it's just it's it's frustrating as it is that's just the order of operations we have to have a strong Foundation before we can even consider building on top of that right because listen if we could just put a bunch of Boulders on top of that and raise the BM we would have done it um okay so that's step one right and that's why I labeled this Step One is because we have to get the burm stabilized and then this step two we're actively working on trying to figure out why they haven't given us the FID the federal interest in the flood mitigation this flood mitigation which we'll talk about a little later on is exactly those things the increasing the burm height is it a pump station is it property acquisition whatever it may be there's various mechanisms to mitigate that would be done in that step too okay so you see this is what this the stream Bank stabilization will look like okay so I just want to take a moment now we're moving right along there's not much left I'm gonna have Ed take a look th this is a timeline we put together of the last decade or so of what what we have done to get to this point okay because we hear a lot the township hasn't done Jack for us in the decade here and unfortunately there's been a lot of things that happened behind the scenes that aren't tangible that are frustrating like we're waiting on a study from somebody in DC to prepare but unfortunately that needs to be done first before we have these other things right so I'm just going to have Ed is going to highlight for us just a couple of these these key points in the timeline you can see this goes back to almost 20 so Ed do you mind uh talking about some of this thanks thank you Tyler so I'm going to touch on a few things here so I'm going to go back to the 2012 when the township had their initial meeting uh with Army Corps and then there was a discussion about getting a study and getting involved with that so fast forward in a little bit in 2016 the applications were made for both section 14 and section 205 to the Army Corps and as Tyler stated before we got a respond resp on section 14 we had not gotten a response on 205 and I followed up with them yesterday specifically about that so once it was determined that an FID was of interest to Army Corps that was delayed due to funding issues uh federally so ultimately that wasn't completed until 20121 so from once that was completed the next step was then to go into the feasibility study as aspect of it so the township had to bond the money in order to share the 50% aspect of it and then now the township needs to add additional money to that due to a federal change within the past uh seven months which requires there to be a further concept design developed as part of the feasibility analysis um within that time there have been projects that were identified that needed to have improvements outfalls obviously are one of them so in 2014 the Stewart Avenue outfall was replaced um in 16 there was a check valve over at the wastewater treatment plant that's been improved and there's also been storm water um improvements on River Drive uh in 2019 and then there's a project coming out um within the next couple months it's it it's it been advertised uh this week um to replace the existing storm sewer infrastructure um for a portion of Stuart Avenue the remaining portion will be completed at a later date um as the project had to be faced um ultimately speaking the stream Bank aspect once a feasibility uh study is completed and if there is a solution that's that's provided that will be the first step in that that will take place from the wastewater treatment plant up to northchester that is the identified study area by the by the Army Corps um from there after that then you go into the design and implementation which we're waiting to get a timeline from Army Corps on see this is just sort of going back to the burm right we talked we hit on the issues um about this is sort of a slide on well why can't we just raise the burm and I I made that point earlier I went ahead of myself right but we can't do that until the Baseline there is stable so that's the first part we also have reporting and Engineers studies on this part of the problem is we also going to need Riverside's help in this because if you just build the burm up high on Delan side and the water is rising on the Riverside side we now created a perfect storm where now we have a wall that's holding the water back into the homes right so the purpose of that is you know it's it's a very complicated issue you can't just build it up on the DeLand line and stop there you know and hope we're all right it's it's it's going to create a worse problem right so what I'm trying to highlight there is these are complicated issues right and it's not just a stroke of a pen would resolve this I wish I wish it would but so this is going to come later on with our flood mitigation at least we're going to take a look at this with the Army Corps that's the plan this is our storm water issue we highlighted this earlier I did mention right there was a time long ago where water would come up through the storm water drains and out into the street everyone knows what I'm talking about right and that was that the the graphic I gave you earlier discussed that right we've taken steps to stop that right because obviously that's a problem right so this is a timeline of those steps that we used effectively what happens is we're putting a check valve at the end of the storm water drain so the storm water drains it goes the water goes from the street and there's a pipe that goes all the way out into the ran ccus right at one point before I was involved in any of this there was was just a pipe and the water could go up and out right and everyone has the horor stories of that happening we've first installed the check valve in 2014 and this sort of highlights here the repairs that we've made we're also in the process before all of this before the storm in January came we are improving the check valve as a part of the steu the um Stewart AV storm water replacement project okay that's part of that process and that's part of what we're doing to try to mitigate as much as possible that storm water issue okay this is just this engineering schematic of it it's not that exciting this is the before and after this was sometime in 2010 I believe or 11 of the V the uh out what do we call it the outfall the existing the existing outfall that's not going to do much for anybody um I'm not an engineer and I can tell you that the after this is a picture a couple of months ago of what this looks like it goes all the way out obviously um those are the improvements that we made okay the next possible mitigation that the Army Corps could rep uh recommend some point down the line there in our step two that we talked about is a pump station right now the pump station is going to address the issue where when it's high tide the water is not going to go down that pipe and up and then out right it needs a little bit of force to get out into the water right so that's where a pump station comes in you put a bunch of pressure behind it and you pump it out unfortunately this sounds really really really easy on paper but it's not at all I'm going to show you a couple schematics we had a plan actually we put together a concept design in 2012 that was sent to the New Jersey D and they rejected funding on it and said too bad you have to have the Army Corps involved because it's an Army Corps project right so we have a schematic the schematic I'm about to show you is from 2012 um our Ed's predecessor made it his firm drafted it there's a couple proposals back then the proposal for a pump station was about $5 million okay that is in 2012 numbers it's a lot more of that now and the big kicker is what I'm about to show you is not going to work currently because of that recent study with all the new flooding levels and the rising sea levels So the plan that I'm about to show you does not work because it's built for a storm that will never happen anymore okay so everything has to get updated and that's really part of another underlying problem is you know we're constantly shifting as the sea level's Rising it's harder to build these type of things so here is a concept design it's hard to see this is the River on the left side the red is the piping for the storm water remember this is a dressing when it rains and there's a lot of water in the street and it needs to go out into the into the river or into the creek this is what this is for I don't know if you can see this but in the middle here there is a red circle where we would be buying property or condemning property to build a retention Pond you know at Milbridge Elementary there's a big pond where all the water sits after it rains that's what we would need to build the water would drain into a Pond like that and then when the appropriate time is the pumps would turn on and send it back out to the ran cookus Creek this was about $5 million back in 2012 and it does not work now because we would need more space than this this is another concept that was created it has a what do we call these things um the Basin right yeah the Basin here and then there's one up here there's three homes that are impacted there right and I'm not showing this to to scare anybody or anything like that but it's just it's not an easy path forward to resolve this right this is a lengthy process people either need to raise their hands and say I'll sell you your property right now or we got to take people to court and force them to give us the property to do that right and that back in 2012 was uh $5 million okay so I want to go back well almost done this is the last slide so just want to go back this is where we are currently at okay remember I said this is the big takeaway for the night is this slide if there's anything you remember okay we had the federal interest determination and I hear a lot of people saying they want to volunteer the blue acres is right out there and I'm not joking I'm serious they are interested in buying people's properties and I'm going to tell you now what they will tell us is if you're seriously interested in that right fill out an application it doesn't commit you to anything okay it doesn't commit you to anything but the more people that do that the more money is available down the road okay and I'm not up here suggesting people should run there and I don't want you to go home and say Tyler said to go sell your property that's not what I'm saying saying the option is there for people and the blue Acres they called us and said can we come down and talk to Residents that's why they're here okay but this is the takeaway from today is the stream Banker right we're in Step One right now we're currently working with the Army Corp of Engineers on a study to fix the erosion restore the stream Bank down there at the ran ccus okay next step will be then what flood mitigation efforts firm increase height walls Pump Station whatever it may be is the next step but we need to have that first step done first this is just the timeline again and that's that's all we have so at this time G do you have anything you want to want to hit on so this part of what what we were talking about and we do also want to welcome Salvation Army folks that are here uh because they uh they're here to help uh those folks that were that were put out and and I would be remiss if I didn't mention Pat pomerance who was here as a council woman when all this was happening she lives in in Wood one and uh she she knew somebody so she was able to get the Army corp's attention first we spent a lot of time uh once we got them to at least say hello and then kind of quoting them to come involved takes them forever but I just want to mention Pat I saw you I saw you in the audience so there's a couple of things this is kind of a catchup where where where we were what we've done and the reason that that we're frustrated certainly not as much as you all because this is your home we get it but understand that this is this is a a project that is too big for us to be able to handle and probably a project that's very very small for the Army Corps they're a huge Federal governmental agency so so that's the conundrum we are trying to get them to do that and and they are doing what they do and they move as Tyler said they're very slow and that's just the way they work so so we understand but what's most important as the study said uh there was so many things in that I wish I had taken better notes but the study said that it's important that we do this and it's important that we get uh comments that are not you know just social media comments like what are they going to do what we we need input from you but we also want you to know what's happening so this is this is one of those things so far the scenario has been not so great but we we promised that we wouldn't as Tyler said we wouldn't sugarcoat this and that's what we've done so so at at this point do we have any additional comments for um the only thing we would ask is if you're going to make comments um you understand what we've been trying to do what what we've hoped to do and how we've run into roadblocks if you have suggestions or you have ideas uh we would appreciate if you'd come up and do that we're going to try to handle it like a like like a council meeting where you'll have five minutes um I'm going to bring the a mic up for everybody can they can use so we're in an informous setting but I would I would ask all right so at this time we'll entertain public comments let me just set the it is very very important okay that we be very civil about this process we're here to listen and answer your questions but if this turns into a fiasco we'll be shut down very very quickly okay so everyone's going to have an opportunity to speak if they wish to speak right and let our press do what they got to do and we're here to answer that okay get you a second all right so we're going to have some ground rules if you'd like to speak you're going to raise your hand you will be called on you can then come up state your name and address for the record this happens at every public meeting by the way because this is a public council meeting and then from there you you'll have five minutes to speak we have to be diligent about our five minutes because if we let everybody Ramble On unfortunately we will be here till one o'clock in the in the in the night okay so everyone has five minutes you will be stopped at five minutes okay I see suggest if if you if you ask a question and we give you a long- winded response it will chew up your five minutes okay so just be careful about that and the second thing is I want to note we're not leaving anywhere I know there's questions and concerns we're going to be here afterwards I'll give you my phone number Ed's also available we're available to ask don't feel like you have to have a question for us today you know we will always be available um to answer your questions okay so uh at this time we'll entertain public comments so if anyone miss you had a question right comment yeah if you just stand up and um state your name and address for the record Jody Klein and I live on SE well I did live on 71 Alden so um I have been displaced as well as Jim and as well as 81 Stewart right the night of the flood we had to be boat rescued I had a lovely orange sticker placed on my door the following morning when I was able to return not one single person has communicated with me from this Township to explain why that sticker was placed I can read I can see what it says but nobody has explained anything so that leads me to I understand all of this is a lot of bureaucratic and a long distant time thing but I'm talking about communication right this minute right this minute for us that have been displaced for three weeks out of our homes our families our pets all of us we we literally I don't know about them I can speak for myself but I feel like I'm standing alone on a on an island somewhere that somebody has forgotten about nobody is communicating with us I called the mayor's office out of frustration I got Joe to call me back Cunningham nobody from the mayor's office called me nobody from the building inspector's office called me to explain why we are where we're at and and my other frustration is if this has been going on I've lived in that home for 25 years if all of this has been going on since 2011 why is there not better communication with the folks that are directly affected we are down there there is a small group of us it's not that many houses that have flooded previously right from the streets but we there's no communication I didn't know any of this could I have um researched that better myself absolutely but as a single parent as you know a worker I don't have time for all of this to to do my my I guess the amount of research that would take it would be more helpful if the township devise some sort of you know Community or some sort of council or whatever to address us directly we're I understand that Riverside Park is is a broad area but when it comes down to it it's really just a few houses on a few the end of Stewart and the end of Alden that are directly affected time and time and time again we watch the township come down and put the stupid orange barricade we've seen it a million times nobody communicates with us all we see is the barricade go up right which means the flood's coming at some point but it's never usually as bad as it was and I understand global warming and I understand this set of record but if somebody would have come to my house or send an email blast or send a phone blast and said this tide is you know supposed to be very high maybe I wouldn't have lost both my vehicles too because maybe I would have moved them maybe I wouldn't be out of my house and had all my my son is in a wheelchair we had to be boat rescued with dogs and a kid in a wheelchair that was not optimal we would have left but we again we see that barricade go up time and time again so it just seems like there's no communication we see it we're kind of desensitized I believe to that point right like nobody's communicating with us so that we know where we're standing and what's going to happen I know you can't predict that it's going to be a record tied I'm not you know I'm not uneducated I get that but there's no communication zero communication you know uh I've heard that 81 Stewart that you you guys paid for a dumpster to go over there and I was told that if I had anything I could you're more than welcome to put it in the dumpster so where would you think that I would be able to take my water infested disgusting items in what car because I lost both my vehicles as well to go put in a dumpster on the next street it it all just feels like a slap in the face if you could understand even you guys staying up here and saying you understand you don't understand because you're not the three families that have been displaced for 3 weeks you don't understand and there's no way for you to understand I just feel like better communication and a better foundation for what's to come needs to happen do I want to be there after now no I don't I don't want to be there I had fully planned on leaving in the next two years once my son graduated from high school because I see the writing on the wall right but here we are here we are and now I'm displaced and if you think the Army Corps moves slow you should deal with the insurance companies because guess what they will cut your ass off in a in a minute if you miss a payment but don't need them for anything because I didn't hear from them for 10 days while I was sitting in a hotel it it's just I'm sorry but there's no way for you to understand why you're sitting in your home unaffected and we are really so frustrated at the lack of communication and the lack of you know understanding what's going on understanding who helped somebody keeps telling me to go to the Red Cross the Red Cross literally me on the phone I don't know why you think that we would help put you up in house that's not what we do so enough with the Red Cross the cleaning kit what is that doing for me the granola bars they're not doing for me either okay so car do you have I want to listen I I you're right I I can understande but you don't understand I'm sorry you just don't you can't you can't all right G do you have anything well there's there's a couple of things I know that we we made an effort with uh Robo calls with text messages uh through Civic ready I know the fire department was out now the also when you called my office the first thing that I did was find out uh if we had any had had any contact with you I I spoke with the director of the office of emergency management Joe who's also a volunteer fireman and he said and and through our administrator he said he was going back out to speak with you I I I cannot give you more information than the director of the office of emergency management uh so but it's just respectful respectful to return a phone call when somebody is literally standing on an island by them themselves in this I understand it's just respectful Joe has understand what you're saying Joe has communicated with me when I reach out to him and he's been he's been trying to be very helpful this has nothing to do with Joe but again the orange sticker was slapped on my door on the T and not not one word from anybody what is does that even mean do you know it's taken my insurance three weeks I just had a structural engineer inspection on Saturday and don't worry it'll take one to three weeks to get the report so I we're displaced indefinitely indefinitely at this point it's just it's the most frustrating process ever and I just feel like if communication would have been a little bit better the fire company didn't come around until 1:00 a.m. when it was too late yeah too late right like they put the barrier up and nobody comes that's it all we see is the barrier up and nothing else happen man' we're we're over time so I I I appreciate your comments I listen I'm not here to defend our communication record so it's taken back you know hopefully everyone signed up for Civ ready back there and we now have people's emails and text messages and part of this is listen we're give let's be honest we'll be honest right so that I appreciate that feedback we'll take it back how can we communicate better down there thank you very much is there any other public comment Miss in the back evening my name is Vicky pepper 649 Monroe Street the corner of Monroe in Chester Avenue Miss Klein I have to give you a hug don't make me here to go through something like that it it's horrible because this group in here aren't just neighbors they're family I'm married to a man who was born in a house on Chester Avenue by the river so we're his siblings these roots here go very deep and my question is who does the Army Corp Engineers answer to Congress put Congress Congress yeah so would it be our Congress person that we reach out to and perhaps have them at a meeting here's we asked Ed this question remember we had this conversation I mean they've already said hey we're interested and we're going to do a study right so I think we've gotten over that hurdle we had Congressman MacArthur send um a letter we also I believe Kim may have sent something at some point so we've got them at that point you know I don't know how much more value you reaching out to your federal representatives are because the Army Corps is is with us now right they're not moving fast but I think it's just unfortunately you know they they should have to move fast I I I don't disagree I don't disagree have we even have family members who have served here served in the police department we currently have a grandson who is serving here I know him well yes yeah and you don't want him to take his sweet old time if he has to get to a 911 call no and this here is a 911 call as far as I'm concerned thank you for your time thank you Mr pepper any other public comment sir Joseph Joseph dobron 57 Stewart Avenue Del New Jersey uh I work in engineering and I've worked for the army courp of Engineers and I've never ever heard anything like you're saying I've worked on several occasions on several major projects throughout the United States and this goes back decade and I highly doubt that it would takeen that long especially for a municipality within the state for them to respond so I was looking back on the meetings earlier and I see that it was just approved what July 17th or something like that for the funding no we we approved the funding it was in fiscal year 20 23 I saw May of 2022 we then they sent us a agreement to move forward and then that was the agreement I don't believe that's the meeting says that's say July 23d 17 2023 what what does the meeting minute say that it was approved the funding for the the study now the the the funding was approved in the last capital in the last capital budget for the last cycle the money's there we're going back and forth with them there was a period in time where we had to enter the agreement and there was a bunch of red tape with that um and we're still I don't know if we've ever finished that process but they're engaged I mean I hopefully they can be as diligent as you say they are we would love that I mean it's it's not our fault that they're moving that slow we wish we have meetings with them now scheduled every other week is the plan with them to say hey what's going on we're going to stay on top of them on this project now that they're engaged so my thing is if if this has been going on for a decade and you've been trying to get in touch with the arm cor ears like you say you have I mean were you doing it on a daily basis so no no what you need to understand right is I know for me as a project manager if I need to go after somebody I'm going to hand especially when it comes to the community you know what I mean that that that new pipe you said you installed in 20 2014 you might want to go down there because I don't know if your check valve or backl B works because it's it's still backing up that's why we're doing work on it in this project we have it out to bid maybe the too far out water can't push water there's no pump on it you know what I mean it's kind of messed up the other thing is too you got that mouth of the cck right there a decade of sil's been building up there that it just keeps getting higher and higher and higher and higher you guys have had a lot of time to to make that call basis respectfully it's not our call to make it's the Army cours jurisdiction that's the problem talking about you guys making the call oh we have we met with them it's on this timeline it's on this timeline we met with them in 2012 there's a picture with us standing there on the river with them after 2012 on a daily basis to help the community I'm happy to give you the answer do you want me to tell you what we did since 2012 we then had to wait we submit it you can see here 2013 14 and 15 to to the D all those those drawings I gave you they yearly dates I can give you the exact dates we had the engineers draft the plans they submitted the D said no no no you need the Army Corps so then we went back to the Army Corps so that that's where we're at i i i there the notion that we did nothing since 2011 till the time we we we funded it I don't think that's a fair assessment of the situation I understand we wish it was fast do I wish that was in one year absolutely right 100% but the reality is we had to do all those steps to get there so if your house was one of the houses down there you wouldn't have that same question oh I understand the question I don't dispute your question I understand the frustration with it this this doesn't bring any of us joy up here I'm not up here saying this is the gold standard would be saying the same thing how many times you making that call I understand on beh of us yeah I understand people that lost their house y thank you thank you any other uh public comment um I need your name and address Miss it's Tiffany Otis 72 Alden a my house was another one that was condemned so my question is you ma'am this is a public I have a question for that please that's not how this works man this is a public meeting okay that report in 2017 correct anybody here notify that there could be a devastating ma'am thank you is there any other public comment pommerin pommerin 21 Alden Avenue good to see you good to see you so I uh printed out this 2017 report the DV study yes okay and unfortunately I haven't read the whole thing so I've just kind of been breezing through it unfortunately I didn't have enough time regardless um so there's a couple of things in here though that I would like to mention sure um and one thing before I even do that yeah the 20 in 2011 when we got I got in touch with the US Cary Army Corp of Engineers you guys can say what you want but you more or less poo pooed it okay and for whatever the reason I don't want to get into that all right but that's what happened yeah you did in 214 2014 you did the duck valve you know just because of the water but now you're saying it needs to be done again what's up with that how many times I have to pay for the same thing and things just keep on happening but going back to what I wanted to read here so in the report it says um the burm was ass signed a vulnerability rating of of moderate to high half the BM has already eroded you showed a picture from 2011 do you have a picture from yet last week um I I do have a picture from last I didn't put in the presentation yes I've seen it I think that would been interesting for everyone to see just how much more it has nobody disputes that it's been eroded I mean 100% yeah okay just saying um so stabilizing the burm would cost according to this report $1.5 million according to the CVA participants to date the township has not been able to repair it more information is needed on the height of the BM yada y okay then it says the burm also protects the Township's wastewater treatment plan and failure or overtopping of the burm could lead to flooding around the plant MH more informations need determined at what Heights so forth and so on the entire plant relies or the township relies on this plant for its wastewater treatment and then when I go to forgive me I wish I had this more um organized sitting here during this I was sitting here um it goes on to say that um because the wastewater treatment plans vulnerability location is importance to Delan Township to plant the plant is a high high priority asset for proteced not that the homes aren't okay but 10 years from now are we going to be sitting in here after you've taken people's homes and now we're saying we got to relocate our sewer plant because guess what we've had all this flooding and now that is in in Jeopardy the wastewater treatment plant facility can be protected from flooding with berms or similar structures or by ensuing the sensitive electrical and me and mechanical components are elevated above predicted flood Heights both these two options require long-term planning and capital outlays of course we realize that the township should consider a cost benefit analysis to evaluate these projects and it says that for every single one of these projects cost evaluation cost analysis etc etc M what I found interesting in here too is it says um open space and habitat rather than opening it to development the township should continue to preserve remaining unprotected open space along the Delaware River ran cookus Creek sweets run sweets Lake and other tributaries the predicted to flood in the CV scenario and then it goes on to say that um in another page here that we should be protecting that open space did we not redistrict rezone our area so that you can put condos apartments restaurants at the harbor I don't was it reson the master plan changed that oh no Gary i s I was on it oh yes that was changed it is it is zoned as Harbor District nothing's been changed there's been no zoning change the master plan was changed a couple of years ago we voted it was voted on I voted against it and they changed the master plan to allow but change the law yeah master plan is a plan of hey what would this look like in 20 years if we had the perfect world that's what that's looking at should we develop this what can we do down here nothing that's a planning document that's not an action it it did not change the zoning it needs to go to the governing body or the zoning board change the zoning that's a wish list that's just like this report it means it's a piece of paper Okay okay so then people can listen or they can't they don't have to listen to that okay so no zoning has been changed okay and then it's zon actually mentions in here you know along the ran cookus Creek and the yeah and I understand that over on the ran cookus Creek where bra brace of alloy is MH we intend to build 65 condos over there Apartments all this says don't develop anything that's not already developed you're just going to cause yourself more problems I don't disagree so why are we doing these things well I'll be honest with you uh we didn't have a choice we were sued and there was a settlement Pat we had it I don't want to argue this with you we're not going to I just want to say okay you're so I'll let you say and then that's the expiration okay that's fine thank you we own the property correct and I understand we need affordable housing units correct and how we have to get them from I don't know or where without the study and whatever all we need to do however we own the property we could do with it as we choose we could have make it we could make it Green Acres and connect it to Anderson's Park that would go in with the County's whole thing that would be great but we chose to give it to a developer because they're going to clean it up at at their cost and add more homes back there great so that that right now that project is floundering and uh unfortunately it may not happen uh because we're under a court settlement the courts decided that we had to provide a certain amount of affordable housing and as you know as a realtor where you had to put it correct okay correct so what are the other options well the other options are are you know all right thank you that's not a flood that part is not okay but regardless you know thank you I think what we need is is the BM okay you raising it but I think what needs and I didn't quite understand that picture so maybe you can explain it to me sure can we get the picture with the step down yeah it just shows there's concrete barriers that go up to make that right cuz to me what would make sense like in Burlington City how they have the bulkhead at the end straight yeah the reason they don't do that yeah but you'd have to take it out because we lost so much AB there's different designs the part it's based on the water flow there and speed and things because if it's straight then it starts to erode underneath there's all sorts of engineering considerations the good news is the Army Corps is going to be the ones figuring that out they may reject that plan that was a concept plan that we used to apply for this right to say hey this is what it would look like so they may say oh use a bulkhead like you suggest or whatever it may be or new technologies and one we're we're way over time 2011 the 222 or 223 took 10 11 years to get funding from the township yep it did spend a lot of money and a lot of other things great thank you Pat any other public coner in the back how's it going good Williams 37 last name Matt Williams 37 Alden Avenue how you doing just want to say sorry for all the people affected by the flood um my issu is a little different I'm on the corner of Alden and lake and my corner turns into a lake when it rains really hard it has absolutely nothing to do with the river it could be low tide it can rain for four days straight nothing happens if it downpours you have three storm drains for four streets and those three storm drains are out front of my house so if it downpours the front of my house turns into a lake I have to move my cars or they get flooded which they've had been I can't use the front of my yard I can't use my front door but my taxes still go up every year this has again absolutely nothing to do with the river it has to do with three storm drains for four streets what's your address 37 Alden Avenue I've been calling since 2011 about it I get to run around every time I was told to move the higher ground I mean it sounds funny but when you come home and there's a lake out front of your house you have to move your cars you can't use the front of your property but your taxes are still getting paid and then you have all the trash dead animals cigarette butts condoms you name it on your front lawn the grass seed you just put down is all washed away and then you call up it takes them an hour to come out they put one barricade up the cops in the fire company just drive right around it everyone drives right through it all the all the splashing comes on your yard you look outside you think you're at the  Jersey with waves coming on your front lawn so I mean again I'm not trying to downplay it's nothing as bad as the people that got flooded and their houses are ruined but my issue has nothing to do with the river it has to do with three storm drains four streets they're about a foot deep and I keep asking them what are they going to do they don't drain anywhere and it's just making the ground out front cracks everywhere it's only a matter of time for the whole thing sinks so it affects me and maybe one other my neighbors that's here but I've been calling about it I call every three months I've been calling since 2011 okay and I just get well look into it I'm like well you ever looking into it yeah and I'm like it's not like you know I don't know much about the engineering like did the storm drains go all the way up Alden could they put more in to maybe stop that access water to slow it down so it doesn't have my front yard turned into a lake but I haven't gotten any answer since 2011 so Ed it if if we have so the storm water system it can rain for 4 days straight n happens if it downpours for 10 minutes the front of my yard turns into a lake and people drive through it they put one little barricade up all the waves come on my lawn everyone's trash everything you name in the neighborhood ends up on my lawn got it and then I got to blow it all out on the street like a jerk off and then people look at me like why are you doing that and I'm like I don't have a choice what am I gon to do pick it up with my bare hands yeah but that's all I got to say I mean I don't know what else to do besides maybe look for some legal help cuz I'm not getting any answers from the Township maybe if I get a lawsuit going because it's not a County Road it's a Township Road maybe something will happen I don't want to do that I'm not that kind of guy but it's frustrating you know and I don't have a driveway I'm the only person that don't have a driveway and the only other thing I would say and I'm not trying to say this to be a smartass I just I go down that River I see what happened to those people and I go whose idea was it to put a bike path in down here you know there's a flood issue I mean I don't understand that like I'm not trying to why would you waste money on a bike path when people are getting flooded it certainly wasn't us yeah well someone approved it from the township right well it's the county county and it's Federal money actually the township didn't have nothing to do with it they didn't approve it I mean I think it went to they go to planning we have to approve you know there's a I understand saying if you know there's a flood issue why would you put a roller SK I don't disagree it's it's you know when you look at the priorities but they got money the county got money for it to connect a bunch of stuff with bike pass that's what they did with it right to connect their Parks I I understand the cognitive dissidence of that like what the heck is that you know so from what I was told my drain used to draining to a retaining pond across the street a long time ago and they don't no more so they don't drain anywhere so like again I don't mind I can deal with it yeah I mean I don't know if it's ever going to get to the point where it's coming into my house it has happened before but why are my taxes getting raised when I can't use my front yard when it rains yeah it has nothing to do with the river yeah I got you has nothing to do with the river your 30 thank you so if if I could just just say to Ed maybe Ed can give us not not on the spot because there's there's uh some homework to do but all the storm water all goes the same way so I don't know if you have if he has inlets that we need to look at make sure that they're not clogged if we could TV those lines just let's take a look at that account all right any other public comment so they they're just a a a cave in we're g it's not connected to anything and you're look at that we're have to look at it I mean right we're gonna tell I know you're not going to like this but we're gonna have head look at it and then he's going to call me back I mean I've never seen it so we're GNA have a head look at it this is the boss here with the water expert he he just wrote a note about it right so you're gonna look at it okay we will look at okay thank you for coming out appreciate it Miss back here you to good evening Kathleen civer 11 Sycamore Street and I came tonight not sh sure if this was the correct Forum because I know you're specifically talking about the flooding and I mean my issue seems very tiny compared but I want to bring It Forward sure um I live on a dead end the mayor has been over in my property and the engineer a couple years ago because I brought this forward um the swed run Creek runs behind my property and I know it used to be managed by somebody I'm not sure who um but they're not allowed to manage it anymore well it's getting wider and the flooding is coming onto my property and with this storm like I said compared to what these people have suffered and are suffering you know my basement flooded completely flooded I have a lake still today on my property I walk on my yard and it's like walking on a wet sponge um the trees that were in the Green Acres back there they're all beginning to fall and I'm getting this is PL syamore syamore swampy plants growing up what's um behind oh Cong okay the township ended up telling me that my property is sinking and that was the end of it um so I again I don't know and I apologize to the people people have are really suffering here if this seems inconsequential but I didn't know I I went to that cleanup kit the second one at the the church and the the blue Acres people said that I should come so here I am um if I can get contact information you we can talk after you've been there so you have a better color of the situ blue Acres people are here I'm not sure if they're in the back I'm not where they are cell I'm looking for the Stream to be managed okay yeah I mean maybe it's best we talk we can talk afterward I I've never been there happy to look at it sure so yeah I apologize no you're good this it's a public meeting so you're allowed to talk about anything you want thank you very much for your uh bringing it up we'll take a look you that um that the same okay any other public comment Miss listen I I live on uh 60 Norman your name and yeah oh ID ofis thank you okay I want to know how come Norman Avenue and Alin Avenue all you guys are talking about is steart we were flooded too on that street yeah my son had 5et of water in his basement okay he's still pumping he just got his heater fixed he was with me for two weeks I live right next door I didn't get any damage I'm up high but I had him and my two grandchildren there so I had a bigger expense yeah but this is my son I'm going to take care of him and just like everybody else they're out of their homes and everything I've lived in that Park since I was a year old and I'm not going to tell you how old I am now but I've been there a long time all right 75 but I remember back back in the days my mom's house caught fire where I was raped on all day sorry about that that water went around our house now I'm going back years ago and now you now all of a sudden we got to do this we got to do that but you know it I just wish it would stop because I do worry I mean my backyard got bloody yeah yeah but you know I mean I I live with the firefighter so you know he would help me out I hope You' hope he would yeah but uh you know I just want to say why why weren't we brought up in the conversation you know we're still in Riverside Park what conversation I mean you're a part of the conversation you I I mean I I live on Norman Norman has never been mentioned we didn't see anybody around the gas company came and checked out the gas and all listen we the whole thing is is a part of this analysis okay it's not just steuart the steuart Aven Stewart came up a lot because that was where there was a lot of work on the main the main outflow we had a lot of water yeah I mean people are still pumping out water you know that live up f p me but I just want to mention don't forget us little people on that street thank you so the scope as as Tyler mentioned the scope is literally from North Chester all the way to and including the sewer plant so that's what they're looking at that whole section but you know on I understand thank you thank you as the public Miss uh good evening Mary Janice Delan um I've heard that you contacted the Army Corps a couple of times I mean it's been over the course of years but you did say the Army Corps answers to Congress I mean it's a federal agency right it's a federal so they answered to the executive branch in Congress right there's federalism there so there's executive branch and Congress funds it right I get it I my question is have you contacted um Congressman Andy Kim we have been in contact when have you contacted him I I don't I don't remember the last time we talked about this specifically but uh so so the idea what they can do what Congress can do is the only way they can help us is to get the Army core to engage and that's happened okay so would we like to move would they like them to move faster everybody would like them to move faster but they're not moving faster okay that still didn't answer my question have you contacted him and if so are you going to contact him again I absolutely will I'll call there tomorrow what what I I just want to warn like we're happy to talk to those folks we have letters in the file from Congressman MC Marthur and stuff but where the value of that was getting them to say hey I'm interested right and we're at that point right so now we're in the bureaucratic BS that's associated with that right right but we're we have them we have their phone numbers we're meeting with them we're moving the puck along it's not fast right but they're there right I mean I just don't listen we're going to try everything we can to keep moving it along Ed screened that them on on the zoom and said we need to get this moving along and we need to have weekly meetings bi-weekly meetings on this so we're doing everything we can to push them forward I know it's not fast enough okay thank you one other quick question um uh since uh we are a sovereign state and uh the state does have the power I believe have you contact have you contacted our governor yes so there was early on this thing keeps Ling out early on those plans some of the red plans we submitted all we submitt it to the D right which is the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection right yeah D early on and they said listen we don't get involved unless the Army Corps because it's their jurisdiction you know when that comes around when the Army Corps then will talk now the D is involved in the calls with us so the state government's involved and the federal government are involved they were in the last call with us okay they're involved yep thank you very much ma'am and to follow up on that please do we had we had uh Sean lurette the director of the D down uh it was uh couple of months back and and they recognized we we toured right along from the sewer plant up a little ways to the to show him the burm so they understand this was when it was a little warmer then than it is now although it's it couldn't be warmer than this room but it it was very warm at the time and they were there they had done a tour so they are engaged as well they are they're now in a situation because Army Core who is the big fish in this particular uh jurisdiction for those things is saying okay and I told him that personally that they were engaged and that kind of that kind of changed the way he looked at this knowing that they were already engaged and that we were the ones that con contacted them and it wasn't every day I'm sure it wasn't every day but it was frequently enough that they've engaged thanks G for the color any other public comment Mr Gilbert Bob Gilbert 75 Stewart Avenue the young lady that was up here is correct it's not just Stewart It's Alden Avenue it's Norman Avenue Mr krockenberger for many years has come up here about the outflow at his place it could be just a normal storm and the street is flooded okay real quick I wish I had brought it but I didn't but I will produce it if it's possible the corps of army Engineers wrote a letter to the mayor Ken Paris I have a copy of it all right it gave section 14 section 204 section 205 what it would cost and what it would cost the township the cost would have been around 7 12 13 13, 500,000 your cost would have been 4 million 500,000 it was approved it was a recommendation from the Corp of army engineers in 2012 so to say that the core the court already gave you a complete thing of what to do and how much it was going to cost now the other thing is when you say about the outlow it's great except when it's high tide and it rains the water has no place to go because the out flow is closed so the water can't go out correct we talked about that today yeah okay it can't go up it can't go up above the other water so the outlow is a good thing but it also is a bad thing at the same time because it does prevent water from leaving the street until it gets low tide um I go back I've been in Stewart Avenue for 30 years went through superstorm sanding we had 30 inches of water in the basement this last little incident in January I had 18 inches of water in the basement now the only thing I learned from Sandy to this one everything has to be up you can't have stuff laying on the ground cuz your flood insurance you have to look at your flood insurance if it just has flood insurance that's not good enough CU they'll tell you it we'll turn your house upside down and whatever stays will pay for so your washer and dryer is movable so they will not pay for that they will pay for your water heater they will pay for your air conditioning they will pay for your heater to heat your house and then to clean up the place so anything that you have on the ground during Sandy I lost $4,000 worth of power tools that I had on the ground but I thought I had flood insurance wrong answer you have have to have contents you have to have contents or they will not cover squat I moved my washer and dryer from the basement up to the first floor I after Sandy with flood insurance they hung my heater from the rafters in a hammock steel bars it is 42 in off the ground now if I flood then I'm getting the hell out the water heater is the only thing and and I don't want to minimize it's the only thing I lost because all my tools are up my heater is up the only thing I lost was the water heater because they can only get it 12 Ines off the ground that cost me $1,875 I tried to look into a tankless water heater they want [Music] $99,000 for a tankless water heater I hoping I could get it up and therefore I wouldn't even have to worry about about a water heater but $9,000 at1 1875 I can buy three more water heaters before I even reach $99,000 so um to say that like I said it's been going on uh if I could just interrupt you for a second if you would if you have a copy of a letter that went to my predecessor and you have a copy of the letter I got it too I read yeah can I is it the cap letter because I've read it it doesn't say what say respectfully it says this is what the path forward would be and then triggered all of that they gave a price section 14 was 1.5 million yeah that's their estimate Ed do you want to explain that so the 1.5 million that's the cap of their funding so if it goes above that that's all the responsibility of the municipality so you have a 6535 breakdown yep so they'll pay for 65% absolutely out of that 1.5 million the township or I shouldn't say the township a non-federal sponsor it's going to have state county Etc incorporated into that that's where they can that's that's their funding limit so anything above that triggers a separate cost municipality and like section 204 was uh section 205 is 7 million 7 million and the other one is 5 million the I don't know 204 off hand but but but 14 is 1.5 yeah but I'm saying when I added it up it was about 13.5 million it would have cost the township 4.5 million but but Bob respectfully I that's them saying this is what you have to do and if you read that it says there's studies that are going on you guys should have more studies right there's a study going on right now so then we we called up DV the DV study from 2017 we said hey Del Ran come study us and we we went on with that they said there needed to be feasibility studies a part of that so after that letter came in we applied to Depp they said nope you need to go to the feds at the same time we said hey how can we get in on that study that letter does I understand what you're you're saying with it but it doesn't say that hey write us a check we're good to go that was an early determination proposal it was an early determination about here's the steps to move forward that slide I put I I I read it I I I wish it said what you wanted to say I I saw I saw it in black and white and I I'm just a working guy I just retired so you know uh we're we're we're over our time so you just wrap up and one real quick thing yes was back in 2012 it's now 2024 12 years later and all I've heard from any Administration is it'll be two years it's been two years for 12 years yeah I you know Bob I don't know the the thing that is and I don't know who that takes credit for it maybe it falls on my shoulders I don't know what was done before I wasn't here in 2012 wer I'm trying right now to get us back on path and to be transparent and open and honest about where we're going to go right what happened then I don't I wasn't there right I'm not blaming anyone I'm but we're trying to move forward to the best we can and be honest about where we're going that's that's that's my goal today so I understand your frustration one last statement go ahead how do I put this nicely the previous administration Gary was the head of Town Council Ken Paris was the mayor and he was caught on a mic saying as long as he was the mayor those people down there won't get that kind of money who's the mayor uh Ken Paris okay and Gary was the T president of Town Council just to let you know so it was came from the mayor previous administration he was on he was ah headed a president of countown yeah Town Council but the mayor made the statement as long as he was the mayor those people like were redheaded stepchildren that won't get the money for down there yeah I I understand listen I would would be pissed off if I heard that comment too but here's what we did that's different we put our money where mouth is we put the money up to fund that feasibility study and now they want more money we are likely I'm going to urge my members of council to put more money up to make sure that study moves forward I thought you you you acquired 200,000 am I correct we put up $200,000 I thought you only had to put half up for it yeah so let me step in here so this is one of the updates that we got within the past couple weeks which I demanded an answer for yesterday so there was an update on at the top level of the core last June that they just notified us about that they need to have a and this I said this earlier in the presentation instead of having a 10% concept design as part of the feasibility study you now need to have a 30% Design This is due to overruns that they were seeing in the actual uh design phase so what that does is it increases the cost of the feasibility study now there's a 50-50 split of the feasibility study so what the township put up to 200 that's because the estimate was around 400 so now they're going to come back to us and we ask for the figure and we haven't gotten it yet we ask for the figure of what that amount is going to be so then it can be presented to to both the mayor and the Council of what the the township would be obligated to to uh bring up to actually continue the study okay just okay we're way way over so we let's we can talk afterwards if you want to talk it's well the only thing is that was back then in 12 and it was 14 million heaven knows what it's going to cost yeah I know right thank you Bob any other public comment we ar yeah do we can you ask if blue anchors can come up we we were hoping they would mention something yes yeah see if they would come up because we're wrapping up yeah let me just get this gentleman's public comment thank you yes Kevin Devin ad Alden uh I hear all these long term fely funded programs that are going to help us in the long term how about the short term how about an ordinance that stops people from riding through the flood waters and damaging our properties more how about a temporary pump coming from the utility that is at the base of the problem to pump out the streets we're already sending it down the storm drains into the river When the tide is low why not pump it out now we don't need the Army Corps for that do we well anytime we're touching any of the water that has to go out they need to bless it it's it's not our jurisdiction you got a storm drain already doing it Tyler we we we're to need approval we would need what would tell them on the mic we gety we would have to get approval from the Army courp to pump it out while it was happening it's what he's talk I I since since 2011 I can count 13 instances of floods in that neighborhood that have touched my property okay that's overflowing the streets onto the sidewalks and onto my property and there are more there are many more those are the only ones I can count on my phone today this is not a new problem long-term stuff is great but now you got to get a short-term plan so we don't get affected like this the next time which could be next week it could be next month we can't wait thank you uh who works here we have a representative from Blue Acres this is the program here in um you can come up to this just real quick Shor yep good evening everybody um my name is Courtney Wald wiup I'm the manager of the blue Acres Program we're part of the Department of Environmental Protection it's a voluntary State buyout program we're in the back um on the way out if you want to talk to us um no pressure again we work work with willing sellers only we will acquire your home at fair market value demolish it create open space and enhance flood storage to prevent uh future flooding okay pretty simple process happy to answer any questions you have submitting an offer application which is available on our website we have some cards we have copies if you want a paper version um it's not a commitment it's literally an expression of potential interest so keep that in mind thanks we don't do so we don't do that at at blue acers or at D but there are other state programs though no blue acers only buys it out yeah and of course of course yeah we're here to help if you need it can you just we we I'm sorry I are legal back here this is a public meeting so we just can't be around if they're going to be here afterwards okay they're here afterwards I'm sorry I know you're have valuable information that's why we brought them out so I didn't mean to kick you out are you are you good I'm okay thank you and there's another comment in the back oh we have Salvation Army here so I know um she went to speak real quick and then if there's any other public comments we'll do that you just come on up thank you good evening everyone my name is Heather Coleman I have reached out to a few of you and I've been able to talk to you but for those that I haven't I'm out I'm right back there at the table I'm from the Salvation Army and you know I'm very sorry for what you have gone through um but I'm not from Delan but I'm from I'm I'm your neighbor I'm from Florence so we're all a community and I'm right down the road and I'm willing to come out help you as much as I can and I'll be I'll be able to tell you what I can assist you with right in the back thank you very much appreciate that is there any yeah okay yep is there any other public comment from from anybody else sir uh yeah yeah we'll get to public comment close it hi everyone good evening sir that wasn't going to work I cannot imagine what these people are going through so everybody stands here and talks about minimizing which is good it's good but you can go to any storm on Alden Avenue drain and look down it's almost filled with leaves and debris like this guy Ed said it doesn't take a lot of rain or long period which doesn't make any sense but I'm not an engineer standing there with a degree but you can clearly see it with your eyes so are we going to do anything to pay attention to this section so when we know storms are coming we're checking the drains will it stop the flooding no but maybe it'll minimize it and also when you know it's coming can you go clear the top of the grates it's not going to hold back to storm water but I'd rather be in ankle deep water for two hours than 6 hours while the water's standing there doing nothing and we're not the only town in New Jersey that experiences flooding so is anybody reached out to all these towns to find out what they've done to minimize flooding or what they've done to get the core of army Engineers involved faster or who they've reached out to to move things along faster yes we have I have y I have a friend in the governor's office I called him up talked to him about what they're doing up in North Jersey and how they're handling the situation there there's a lot of blue Acres involved up in North Jersey we also talked to Representatives I forget their name at the fair at at the church their Name Escapes me someone from the county um and they said arm record is naturally this slow they are always this slow was what the feedback we got okay they said it's because we said so have that pain a little bit more attention down in this section we got you during certain times fair enough two things could you we just get your name and address so we Dave Marson 60 Alden you got that and I've already talked to the administrator we're going to have Public Works go out there take a look I saw the Public Works guy I'm not going to drop any names and he said well we come around and clean the drains out you know o October November well lot of good that does no no no it's a little bit too late we're we're not talking about snow removal we're not talking about this and that we're talking about people's lives here understood you know it's not a pothole where you bend a rim or anything like that you've taken away these people's lives uprooted their children their families you know minimize it now it looks like it's going to be a long fight and all these people here I guarantee you are going to fight uh but can we minime miniz the damage that's happening now and do things to make these people feel like we're part of a community thank you yeah Kim uh Kim kuster uh 48 Norman Avenue uh maybe just two suggestions um first I think it would be very helpful to contact our and keep engaged with our planning board because our master plan right now when it was redone recently it did encourage that the harbor District could be developed and we had we sat here a year ago and a developer came here said oh because of your master plan we are presenting this plan so now that we have all acknowledged that there is a flooding problem in this town let's get the planning board to get our master plan to say enough of the development we want to protect what land is out there if it needs to be open space in Green Space we need to go for that and maybe to have a task force for the people that there should be one person that people can contact a crisis person so all of us have a place to go to to say I have a problem I need you know I want I have a question I've lost my house there needs now that the town has acknowledged there is a problem now we need to go forward and we need to get and also we have to understand that all this storm water is coming from somewhere and this town has now become very developed so when you when you build out Chester woods and you start eliminating lots of open space and trees that water runoff is going to increase so as a town let's start looking at the potential of Protec ing some of these spes and not causing more water if we have a problem now we need to address it thank you thank you any other uh public comments all right we're going to shut down our public comments Nikki you have something to say real quick good evening everyone I just want to say um I'm the councilwoman for that award um I live on Stewart I've been through a flood and I know what it feels like not like you um all I want to say is I'm there I do come around every now and then and I hope you welcome me with open arms if you need something you have a question reach out to me I don't have a problem I'm a worker holic I like to help I like to help my community I just need you guys to work with me I'll work with you but I live on Stewart and like I said for Sandy um my stuff was floating in the basement and I know what it feels like when there's nobody to go to except for my neighbor over here and it like n you know what we'll help you my husband wasn't in the country but now that I'm on Counsel I know what it feels like at least some of what it feels like and I pray that you work with me because the goal is I don't want to lose my home you don't want to lose your home and we need to work together so when I come around you know I'll just get a disclaimer I'm afraid of dogs so if you have a dog if you can just keep it inside I'll talk to you I don't have a problem with that um but my thing is once we work together as a group we can get things done and everything everybody said here tonight I really appreciate it because I'm learning a whole lot I'm just got on Counsel um but like everything else we need to work together and working together like this we get things done thank you Nikki thank you so um have we have we closed the public portion so so what we'll do is we'll continue to do that please be sure to sign up so that we have a direct contact with all of you that are here again sign up for civic ready if if you uh have not already done so we'll have that on the website and you well you for for the Army Corps I don't think they have a public phone number I don't I don't know Google it's a Philadelphia office they have a Philadelphia office it's the army cour of Philadelphia so I thank you for your patience we will we will uh continue to have these meetings and keep you up to date as we go forward they will be a lot more frequent and hopefully we'll have some progress to report than you everyone at this time I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor opposed motion carries we are adjourned thank you everybody have a great night