New Haven Independent

On precisely that subject, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) wants an annual report card from the Elm City. At last week’s City Plan meeting, commissioners approved the yearly scorecard, of projects completed and not, which the alders then will pass along to the federal government.

It’s no mere exercise, City Plan staff explained. The yearly updates keep current the Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP), without which the city would not be eligible for critical post-disaster as well as pre-disaster infrastructure improvement grants.

“We’ve made lots of progress,” said Joy Ford, coordinator of the City Plan Department staff, “in making the city safe from flooding disasters.”

The commissioners heeded her and approved the report to be sent to FEMA. A quick perusal indicates a lot of work remains to be done.

First, the staff report itemized, among many improvements on the 2005 to do list, these representative achievements:

Dean Street, out by Tweed, which is oftentimes flooded by high rains and tides, will be safer now due to a decrease in the number of outlets on the Morris Creek tide gate. Yet to be done are the elevation of the berm along the street and the building of a pump station in the area.

Front Street: Between Middletown and Grand, along the Quinnipiac River, which often floods after a high tide combined with heavy rain, the road was rebuilt with new storm drainage structures and control valves.

Wintergreen at Westville: A newly completed residential development included on-site pumps, since it is at an elevation lower than the West River flood wall. The channel adjacent to the complex was cleared of vegetation and debris to facilitate flow.

Catch Basin Maintenance: The city’s engineering department has hired two contractors to clean out and maintain the city’s 11,000 catch basins on a more regular schedule, at the rate of 2,000 basins per year. The clogging of these basins, which often back up with debris, both of the natural and Dunkin Donuts variety, has heretofore all too often been addressed by enterprising individual citizens and many volunteer groups

Among the ongoing projects also reported on are shoreline stabilization efforts. Unlike the above, however, these all require state Department of Environmental Protection permits. While the city reported permits to begin this work at East Shore Park, other areas, such as the crumbling sea wall along Dover Beach Park in front of the new Q Terrace development, remain in ongoing, and sometimes heated negotiation.

Click here for a more detailed article on how DEP prefers to let natural vegetation function as a flood protector at Dover Beach, whereas the city and the local residents want what they feel is a safer, more urban solution: old fashioned sea wall restoration.

Also of ongoing concern to the city engineer, Richard Miller, per the report, is the collapse of a wall along the river in the lower Front Street/Brewery Square area. He said the department currently lacks the funds to remedy this problem.

That initial HMP was approved in 2005, and the next full one, due every five years, will be coming up soon, just like the tides.