Bureaucracies, Politics, and Flood Control

In 1999, Hurricane Floyd hit parts of New Jersey real hard. Many rivers flooded densely populated areas along their banks. These communities knew that the situation could be real bad. And, it could happen again.

You would expect a swift response that would get the necessary flood control projects underway and minimize the potential hazards in future storms.

You would be wrong.

It's now 6 years later and nothing has been built to deal with the flood control, and those local communities are only now dealing with setting up the bureaucracy.

The West Paterson, Little Falls and Cedar Grove councils are in various stages of considering ordinances that would establish a regional flood board. The board would give the area a larger voice when applying for grant money for projects that could help prevent flash flooding, West Paterson Councilman Keith Kazmark said.

Such flood-control measures could include building levees, deepening and widening the river in parts, diverting the flow and buying out homes along its banks to remove residents from potential flood zones.

All three municipalities must adopt ordinances to establish the board. West Paterson has already introduced its ordinance. Little Falls is still reviewing the language. Cedar Grove Township Manager Thomas Tucci did not return several telephone calls for comment on that township's progress.

Six years later and this basic step hasn't even been done. It didn't require any construction and the enabling legislation could have been hashed out in a few weeks with negotiations between lawyers for the three municipalities.

The Army Corps of Engineers is conducting a study of the Peckman River Basin - from West Orange through Verona, Cedar Grove and Little Falls to West Paterson. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, has secured about $900,000 in federal money to fund the work, though the group needs more money and time to finish the study, said Paul Tumminello, the project's manager.

Tumminello said Tuesday that the study could take "a couple of years" to complete.

The U.S. Senate has proposed $375,000 for the study to continue in the next fiscal year, said Caley Gray, a Pascrell spokesman, but it is unclear whether it will survive future federal budgets.

So, even if the towns get their act in order, the Army Corps of Engineers will need a few more years to complete a study of the river basin. Add a few more years after that and you might have flood control works in place. Pretty soon it will be 15-20 years after Floyd and there will be no flood control in place. That's pathetic.

And the potential for another catastrophic flood event exists every year.

Some people really don't get it. They think New Orleans was a unique situation? Not quite. The folks down in New Orleans faced a greater threat, but their response appears to be as casual as those in New Jersey take flooding along their rivers.

It will happen some time in the future, so let the good times roll. Money that could go to flood control gets diverted for other purposes, and people figure that if they haven't had a major flood event in a few years that the threat has subsided.

UPDATE:
Louisiana politicans are going to lose the blame game badly when folks really begin to look at their inaction for the past 40 years, but specifically the last 10 years.

By 1998, Louisiana's state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one tenth of one percent of that -- $1.98 million -- was dedicated to levee improvements in the New Orleans area. State appropriators were able to find $22 million that year to renovate a new home for the Louisiana Supreme Court and $35 million for one phase of an expansion to the New Orleans convention center.

The following year, the state legislature did appropriate $49.5 million for levee improvements, but the proposed spending had to be allocated by the State Bond Commission before the projects could receive financing. The commission placed the levee improvements in the "Priority 5" category, among the projects least likely to receive full or immediate funding.

The Orleans Levee Board was also forced to defer $3.7 million in capital improvement projects in its 2001 budget after residents of the area rejected a proposed tax increase to fund its expanding operations. Long term deferments to nearly 60 projects, based on the revenue shortfall, totaled $47 million worth of work, including projects to shore up the floodwalls.

No new state money had been allocated to the area's hurricane protection projects as of October of 2002, leaving the available 65 percent federal matching funds for such construction untouched.

How many other localities lost out on matching funds for terror prevention or disaster preparedness because the money wasn't used or was wasted on pet projects that did little except provide for ribbon cutting ceremonies for politicians to attend.