Mayor’s Town Hall Meeting Seeks To Ease Tide of Flood Complaints

OCEAN CITY – Mayor Jay Gillian organized a town hall-style meeting March 30 in the municipality’s Senior Center to explain the latest strategy and efforts his administration is undertaking to remedy flooding.
Speaking to a crowd of over 200 residents who filled the center to capacity, Gillian said he and his team are doing everything possible to address persistent flooding that has plagued the city, in some neighborhoods more seriously than others.
Gillian has come under on-going criticism by some residents and the Ocean City Flooding Association including pointed questioning during council meetings, which he attends.
Craig Wenger, project manager at consultant Michael Baker, International, presented a series of slides and numbers including technical engineering findings that explained the roots of the city’s flooding problems.
“We have storm ‘water events’ and rain ‘water events’ both of which cause very deep water that rushes in over the bulkheads and cause the flooding. Depending on whether it is low tide when the water will go out, high tide when it’s like a full bathtub and we want to pull the plug, or rushing, surging water, there are different solutions,” said Wenger.
In his briefing, Wenger noted “the ideal solution is if we could raise the entire island and make it 10 feet in its center so that the sides would slope down and the water would descend from there. Of course, this is not possible nor is the second-best solution, which would be to construct bulkheads around the entire island at a height of at least six feet.”
Wegner commented that when it rains for a 24-hour period, which is not unusual, the island can receive about 5 inches of water, which equates to 34 million gallons. Flash flooding then can ensue and so the city is expecting to improve the pipes, pumps, check valves and overall drainage system to stem and then push out the water. 
“We are expecting to bid out a contract by this fall that will create four pump stations located throughout the city including at the airport and at the location of 30th Street and Haven Avenue where flooding is particularly bad. We are going through the permitting process now with the Army Corps of Engineers and the state and are consulting closely with the various utility companies to make sure that we avoid gas lines for example. The budget is about $12-14 million and we are expecting the project to be finished by summer 2017.”
“We are always looking for money to help augment what we can do with our city budget in the form of grants for example from the state or federal government,” added Gillian. “We have discovered that much of the city’s pipes are completely deteriorated and so old, anywhere up to 60-years-old that in many cases there are no bottoms to them which means the water just rises to the top.”
After Wenger’s presentation participants were afforded the opportunity to ask questions. Several expressed their appreciation to Gillian for organizing the meeting.
One resident commented, “I realize that with all the right-angle turns that have to be dealt with remediation will be difficult. So what you’re saying, though, means you’ll be taking some of the inlets that quickly fill with sand off the main trunk line to improve water outflow, is that correct?” to which Wenger replied in the affirmative.
Another resident asked if planned pumps will be noisy, aesthetically pleasing and kept away from homes. “We are going to do our best to landscape the pumps so that there is no issue on how they look. I know at 30th and Haven the pump will be near houses so we’re going to try to make it look like a park. On the noise factor, the pumps are encased in oil and under water underground so there is no noise. If there was a generator there would be lots of noise but that is not the case with the pumps,” said Wenger.
Additional information on the city’s plans regarding flood remediation as well as Wenger’s presentation can be found on the municipal website: www.ocnj.us.
To contact Camille Sailer, email csailer@cmcherald.com.