The Green Brook Flood Control Project is a flood control project in Somerset County in central New Jersey first proposed in the early 1970s in the wake of two major flooding events: a 1971 flood event and a major 1973 flood which ravaged the Green Brook and Raritan River basins, causing millions in property damage and several deaths in central New Jersey.
The worst flooding in the Green Brook basin occurs in Bound Brook, which partially lies on a natural flood plain of the Raritan River at the junction of the Green Brook and Raritan River.
To address this flooding problem, the United States Army Corps of Engineers has proposed the Green Brook Sub Basin Flood Control Project, which entails numerous flood walls, levees, channel diversions, widening projects and retention basins throughout the Green Brook basin. [1]
The Green Brook Flood Control project has languished for decades due to a lack of federal funding. Hurricane Floyd in 1999 caused yet more property damage and deaths in the Green Brook basin, especially in Bound Brook, and reinvigorated the flood control project. As of 2006, two levees have been built on the western and eastern sides of Bound Brook. An important levee (R2) on the southwestern side of Bound Brook, which would prevent the Raritan River from flooding the downtown and nearby residential areas, has been completed. Full 150 year protection of downtown and nearby residential areas of Bound Brook is effectively in place with final construction due to be completed by the summer of 2014.
The April Nor'easter of 2007 flooded Bound Brook with the second highest crest ever recorded in the area, as the envisioned flood protection systems were not yet fully in place. However, the April 2007 flooding did reinvigorate efforts to complete the flood levee protection system around Bound Brook, to protect it from future flooding.
Flooding of downtown occurred in August 2011 when Hurricane Irene passed along the East Coast. [2]
The Finderne Wetlands mitigation project [4] (also known as Finderne Farms) is a wetlands project upstream of Bound Brook in Bridgewater, New Jersey that is tied into the Green Brook Flood Control project. When completed, Finderne Farms will serve as a Somerset County park with trails through wetlands and ballfields. More importantly, Finderne Farms will serve as an upstream wetland that will help to reduce flooding in the Raritan River valley by providing space for floodwaters to pool.
A roadway bridge called the Sebrings Bridge, which crosses the Green Brook and links Sebrings Mills Road and Greenbrook Road in the respective towns of Green Brook and Middlesex, was replaced in 2012 as part of the Green Brook Flood Control project. [5] The bridge currently slows water flow in the Green Brook during periods of high water runoff and causes flooding in the areas upstream of the bridge. The new bridge will be widened and raised to ease water flow. Federal funding is in place for Fiscal Year 2014 for the bridge replacement. Replacement of the bridge also will allow for additional future flood mitigation measures in the areas adjacent to the bridge, such as additional flood walls and levees.
The Raritan River is a river of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Its watershed drains much of the central region of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay near Staten Island on the Atlantic Ocean.
The Old River Control Structure is a floodgate system in a branch of the Mississippi River in central Louisiana. It regulates the flow of water from the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya River, thereby preventing the Mississippi River from changing course. Completed in 1963, the complex was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a side channel of the Mississippi known as "Old River", between the Mississippi's current channel and the Atchafalaya Basin, a former channel of the Mississippi.
The Herbert Hoover Dike is a dike around the waters of Lake Okeechobee in Florida.
The Millstone River is a 38.6-mile-long (62.1 km) tributary of the Raritan River in central New Jersey in the United States.
Green Brook is a tributary of the Raritan River in central New Jersey in the United States.
The Bonnet Carré Spillway is a flood control operation in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Located in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, about 12 miles (19 km) west of New Orleans, it allows floodwaters from the Mississippi River to flow into Lake Pontchartrain and thence into the Gulf of Mexico. The spillway was constructed between 1929 and 1931, following the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, and has been designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The Atchafalaya Basin, or Atchafalaya Swamp, is the largest wetland and swamp in the United States. Located in south central Louisiana, it is a combination of wetlands and river delta area where the Atchafalaya River and the Gulf of Mexico converge. The river stretches from near Simmesport in the north through parts of eight parishes to the Morgan City southern area.
Gavins Point Dam is a 1.9-mile-long (3 km) embankment rolled-earth and chalk-fill dam which spans the Missouri River and impounds Lewis and Clark Lake. The dam joins Cedar County, Nebraska with Yankton County, South Dakota a distance of 811.1 river miles (1,305 km) upstream of St. Louis, Missouri, where the river joins the Mississippi River. The dam and hydroelectric power plant were constructed as the Gavins Point Project from 1952 to 1957 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Pick-Sloan Plan. The dam is located approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) west or upstream of Yankton, South Dakota.
River engineering is a discipline of civil engineering which studies human intervention in the course, characteristics, or flow of a river with the intention of producing some defined benefit. People have intervened in the natural course and behaviour of rivers since before recorded history—to manage the water resources, to protect against flooding, or to make passage along or across rivers easier. Since the Yuan Dynasty and Ancient Roman times, rivers have been used as a source of hydropower. From the late 20th century, the practice of river engineering has responded to environmental concerns broader than immediate human benefit. Some river engineering projects have focused exclusively on the restoration or protection of natural characteristics and habitats.
The Morganza Spillway or Morganza Control Structure is a flood-control structure in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located along the western bank of the Lower Mississippi River at river mile 280, near Morganza in Pointe Coupee Parish. The spillway stands between the Mississippi and the Morganza Floodway, which leads to the Atchafalaya Basin and the Atchafalaya River in south-central Louisiana. Its purpose is to divert water from the Mississippi River during major flood events by flooding the Atchafalaya Basin, including the Atchafalaya River and the Atchafalaya Swamp. The spillway and adjacent levees also help prevent the Mississippi from changing its present course through the major port cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans to a new course down the Atchafalaya River to the Gulf of Mexico. The Morganza Spillway, operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was opened during the 1973 and 2011 Mississippi River floods.
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is involved with a wide spectrum of public works projects: environmental protection, water supply, recreation, flood damage and reduction, beach nourishment, homeland security, military construction, and support to other Governmental agencies. Through 19 Flood Control Acts since 1917, Congress has authorized the Corps of Engineers to be involved with flood protection and damage reduction in almost every state of the union.
The Water Resources Development Act of 1999, Pub. L. 106–53 (text)(PDF), was enacted by Congress of the United States on August 17, 1999. Most of the provisions of WRDA 1999 are administered by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
Van Veghten's Bridge is a bridge spanning the Raritan River in Somerset County, New Jersey, connecting the Finderne section of Bridgewater with Manville. The bridge carries four lanes of Somerset County Route 533 across the river and the flood plain. In Manville the roadway is called North Main Street. In Bridgewater, it becomes Finderne Avenue.
Flood management describes methods used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and runoff. Flood management methods can be either of the structural type and of the non-structural type. Structural methods hold back floodwaters physically, while non-structural methods do not. Building hard infrastructure to prevent flooding, such as flood walls, is effective at managing flooding. However, it is best practice within landscape engineering to rely more on soft infrastructure and natural systems, such as marshes and flood plains, for handling the increase in water.
The Charles River Natural Valley Storage Area comprises over 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of protected land in the middle and upper watershed of the Charles River in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. The lands were acquired by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and are managed by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. The project's field office is located at West Hill Dam.
The West Atchafalaya Floodway is a flood control structure of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project located in the Lower Atchafalaya Basin in south-central Louisiana. It has a project design flood flow capacity of 250,000 cu ft/s (7,100 m3/s).
The Old Stone Arch Bridge is a bridge located in Bound Brook, New Jersey, United States. It is the second-oldest extant bridge in the US, after the Frankford Avenue Bridge over Pennypack Creek in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Built in 1731, it is the oldest bridge in New Jersey. It spans the Green Brook and connects Bound Brook with Middlesex Borough in northern central New Jersey.
Hurricane Floyd in 1999 was the costliest natural disaster in New Jersey's history, until it was surpassed by Hurricane Irene in 2011. Damage in the state totaled $250 million (1999 USD), much of it in Somerset and Bergen counties. Seven people died in New Jersey during Floyd's passage – six due to drowning, and one in a traffic accident. A police lieutenant took his life after coordinating floodwater rescues for nearly 48 hours.
The Fargo-Moorhead (FM) Area Diversion project, officially known as the Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Area Diversion Flood Risk Management Project, is a large, regional flood control infrastructure project on the Red River of the North, which forms the border between North Dakota and Minnesota and flows north to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada.
The Passaic River Coalition (PRC) is an organization based out of Willow Hall in Morristown, New Jersey. The coalition is an urban watershed association active since 1969 in protecting water quality and quantity of the entire Passaic River watershed of northern New Jersey and Rockland and Orange Counties, New York.