House Committee Approves Funds For Flooding Study

The House Appropriations Committee voted to allocate $1 million Wednesday to fund the Passaic River Mainstream Study project.

The study will help initiate an agreement between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) and the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to evaluate solutions to flooding in the Passaic River Flood Basin.

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote next on whether or not to allocate the funds. The Senate and President Obama would also need to approve the allocation before the $1 million is distributed.

President Obama in his proposed 2013 Fiscal Year budget. He promised flood victims that the federal government would help them rebuild their homes after and Paterson at Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr.’s request after Hurricane Irene.

Pascrell and Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez wrote Obama a letter in June urging he allocate the funds.

“I am heartened that our efforts during the past year were not lost on the Appropriations Committee and that its members provided this much needed funding to find a comprehensive solution to flooding in the basin,” Pascrell said in a statement.

The DEP is working with the Army Corps to  to study large-scale, long-term flood damage reduction projects, including levees and floodwalls, in the basin. The $2.6 million plan is expected to begin in June.

The partnership is part of a 15-point plan the DEP developed to relieve flooding in the basin. The original report . It outlines short-term and long-term actions to deal with flooding. Part of the plan was to study the operation of the floodgates on the Pompton Lake dam. The study concluded that the gates to downstream flooding.