Online Petition Urges Passaic River Flooding Fix

Two assemblymen, including Republican minority leader Alex DeCroce (R-26), have started an online petition urging President Obama to prioritize alleviating Passaic River Basin flooding in his 2013 budget.

The online petition is at www.floodpetition.com.

Officials said two solutions to the flooding have been proposed: Constructing flood walls and a system of levies, or installing a drainage tunnel that would transport floodwater out to Newark Bay. Several local and state officials have proposed the tunnel as a solution for years. Rumana said officials estimated the tunnel to cost about $1.9 billion.

A hard copy of the petition was passed around affected areas for several weeks. Officials said they would send all of the signed petitions to Obama before he sends his 2013 Fiscal Year budget to Congress for approval.

Assemblyman Scott Rumana (R-40) said this week at his office in Wayne. "It’s a new normal and that new normal is crippling this area. It’s a problem that’s so massive that needs real attention and needs real money and we have to get our federal officials motivated to bring the money here to solve it.”

Rumana said that in the past 110 years, five of the eight worst area floods have occurred since 2005.

“We’re going to see a very troubling economic death if we don’t find a way to solve the problem in the region,” Rumana said. “You’re not going to solve this by buying out a couple of homes in the most devastated areas. That’s not solving anything.”

Rumana said that, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the area has sustained $3 billion to $4 billion in losses since 2005.