Water, Water Everywhere

COURT HOUSE – A number of residents complained to Middle Township officials March 4, about flooding following rain events this year. Property owners from a particularly vulnerable area off of Stagecoach Road went to the governing body meeting to ask for help, citing an inability to get into their house due to high-water levels that are not receding.
An aging stormwater drainage system, high levels of impervious surfaces in some areas, proximity to large bodies of water on the east and west of the township, and record-high groundwater levels combined to make this past year a challenging one for many property owners.
According to the state climatologist, New Jersey has experienced “more precipitation in 2018 than in any year since records began being kept in 1895.” The year was reminiscent of another very wet period in 2010 and 2011 when many of the same areas of the township flooded. That included the same homes on Stagecoach Road.
National Weather Service stated that Cape May County experienced 59.9 inches of rain from March 2018 to March 2019. That total was 16.3 inches above average and placed the period in the category of 26 percent to 50 percent greater than mean annual precipitation levels.
To complicate matters, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) rates groundwater levels “extremely high,” placing them this month above the 90th percentile.
The USGS measures groundwater levels in Middle Township from a site off Route 47 near Nummytown and Fishing Creek. The highest water level at the site in recent years was in 2010 when the level stood at 8.18 feet below land surface. On March 2, the reading was close to that record at 9.4 feet below land surface. By contrast, the lowest level in recent years was in 1999 when the site recorded groundwater levels at 14.16 feet.
The problem that groundwater levels present is they complicate the normal response to areas of flooding. In 2010, the area around Stagecoach Road had parts of the nearby campground that had not been completely saturated, allowing properties that flooded in March of that year to get relief by pumping the water to the obliging campground.
This year, Municipal Engineer Vincent Orlando, who also sat through the April 2010 committee meetings concerning flooding in many of the same areas,told property owners that the same practice would not work. The groundwater in the area was too high on their property and in the nearby campground. “It would just come right back,” he said.
Mayor Timothy Donohue said that the township is struggling with similar problems in other areas of the 72-square-mile municipality. It’s a challenge in an area “surrounded by water,” he said.
Donohue said the solutions were not simple in many areas. “If they were simple, we would have implemented them,” he added. He assured residents that the township is diligently looking at longer-range solutions in many areas.
With many scientists predicting an increasing number of severe rain events, mainland communities like Middle Township will be joining neighboring island municipalities in seeking solutions to rain-event flooding.
Infrastructure projects are underway in Avalon and Stone Harbor, focused primarily on the flooding that is caused by rain events.
The Stockton University Coastal Research Center is working with both Seven Mile Island boroughs to measure flooding in relation to rain events through the use of water pressure gauges that collect and electronically report data for long-term analysis, to aid the municipalities in the best paths for infrastructure investment.
The perils of stormwater runoff, both in terms of flooding and waterway pollution, led the state to pass legislation that allows municipalities to create stormwater utilities, as they have wastewater utilities.
The effort was funded with a controversial fee structure opponents have called a rain tax. The intent, according to many lawmakers, was to give municipalities a dedicated revenue source to deal with long-neglected and aging stormwater infrastructures.
One of the challenges facing communities across the county in the next several years is going to be developing strategies to deal with water inundation. In Middle Township, an added issue potentially related to severe rain events may be stormwater intrusion into the aging sewer system, adding to higher bills from the county Municipal Utilities Authority.
With all the issues swirling around high levels of precipitation, some property owners were left with an immediate solution – wait for their properties to dry out. 
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.