Politics & Government

Army Corps of Engineers May Get $5 Million for Buyouts

It is unknown at this time how much could be used to buyout homes in Wayne.

Wayne residents living in flood-prone areas of town could have their homes bought out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water passed a measure Tuesday to give the Corps the authority to spend $5 million on home buyouts in the Passaic River Basin.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg announced the measure’s passage Tuesday.

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“Buying out homes from voluntary sellers will remove families from harm’s way, create more open space for natural flooding and mitigate expenses caused by flooding in the Passaic River Basin,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “Buyouts are just one part of a larger effort to protect families who suffer from repeated floods.”

Meghan Pennington, Lautenberg’s press secretary, said that part of the $5 million would be used to buyout homes in Wayne, but did not know exactly how many homes would be bought out.

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“At this point, there is no way to know how much money will be used to buy out homes in Wayne,” Pennington said.

For some residents, a buyout is the only way out of a continuous cycle of flooding and rebuilding their homes.

“Buying me out is the only solution,” Denise Ziegler said. Ziegler lives on Fairfield Road. She has been flooded six times since 2005, including three times this year. “What else am I supposed to do? Nobody wants to buy my house.”

The measure also appropriates $570,000 to the Corps to fund improvements to the Passaic River Flood Warning System (FWS).

The FWS is a communications network and planning system that coordinates the local and state emergency notification system that provides officials and residents with real-time information on how much rain has fallen in a particular area and on the water levels located throughout the basin.

The FWS consists of 35 rain gauges and 21 stream gauges located throughout the Passaic River Basin. The components are linked to 12 computer base stations. Three of the 21 gauges and all of the rain gauges transit real-time data to the base stations via radio. The other 18 gauges transmit data by satellite and telephone lines.

The township received $24 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency earlier this year to buyout homes in the Hoffman-Grove section of town.

On Tuesday, a U.S. Senate subcommittee appropriated $6 billion for FEMA to help families and businesses recover from damages from Hurricane Irene. That measure must now be approved by the whole Senate.


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