By: Mike Spille

Updated to indicate proper surveying is occurring

There has been some movement on the 25 Hewitt Road situation. Not necessarily all good, but some of it at least is in the right direction.

But there is still a lot of work to do, and some government agencies still seem to be getting in the way more than helping.

We gave an overview of the Township Committee Meeting where an extensive presentation was given by the 25 Hewitt Road owner's lawyer and engineer a few weeks back.

You can read that here. The 25 Hewitt Road content is about halfway down the article.

In the Township Committee presentation, we were treated to engineering diagrams for an Erosion & Sediment Control Plan for the property, which mostly focused on four retention basins.

An outline of those plans are shown below in figure 1.

Figure 1 - Outline of sediment retention basins

You can see Hewitt Road running along the bottom of this diagram, with the 25 Hewitt property above it. At the top we have the North compass indicator.

The plan features four retention basins - one at the South Eastern corner along Hewitt Road, a second at the Northern corner of the property on Hewitt Road, a third retention basin towards the back south-western portion of the property, and a final retention basin behind 19 and 21 Hewitt Road.

The Hewitt Road basins will be built first, then the back Soutth-Western corner one, then the one protecting the two adjacent properties last.

This despite the fact that the Dupuis and Cahill properties are at highest risk of flooding.

Not that flooding will matter too much here. These plans are not a storm water management plan. These only address Erosion and Sediment Control. We can all get stuffed about flooding as far as the engineers are concerned.

A more detailed view of the individual basins was also provided, shown in Figure 2.

The fine print, as always, matters quite a bit. In the case of 25 Hewitt, the fine print includes the fact that these plans were not built based on site surveys of the current state of 25 Hewitt Road after the owner regraded it and added foreign soil, but instead is based on 8 year old lidar data from the State of New Jersey.

This means all of the water and sediment flow calculations were based on bad data.

Despite the fact that the plans were not based on actual survey data, according to the owner's attorney, both the Hunterdon County Soil Conservation District and NJ DEP signed off on these plans.

Based on those approvals, and some verbal razzle-dazzle from the owner's lawyers, our Township Atttorney Perez inexplicably tried to ramrod this proposal through the Township Committee and garner some sort of "approval" from the Township.

Along the way, the owner's engineer also testified that the site was being substantially stabilized by increased vegetation, that gravel dumped in the drainage ditch had not migrated out of the ditch, and that Hewitt Road was not in any danger.

Lucky for us, the Township Engineer did not agree.

The township engineer required plans be based on actual surveys of the site.

Further, pictures have been shown to the Township Committee of substantial amounts of gravel flowing from the 25 Hewitt drainage ditches onto 32 Hewitt Road's property through the culvert pipe under Hewitt Road. As have pictures of the deplorable and crumbling state of the Township's right of ways on the two corners of the property on Hewitt Road - corners the owner's Engineer refused to show the Township Committee.

Which brings us to this week. Proper surveyors were spotted at 25 Hewitt Road earlier this week with full blown survey equipment. It appears that the owner will, in fact, survey the property with the new grading.

We can also hope that new plans for the sediment basins will created based on the new survey data. Based on the videos of water and sediment flow from the site documented from July to September, we can say with confidence that the existing retention basin plans are not accurate or adequate.

And of course, none of this still addresses flooding and storm water concerns, only sediment and erosion.

Of course, now that the N'oreaster has passed, people are wondering how 25 Hewitt has fared. After all, the owner's engineer painted a pretty rosy picture of the site stabilizing and looking pretty good even without the retention basins.

Video 1 - 32 Hewitt Road drainage ditch

Video 1 above shows the state of the 32 Hewitt Road drainage ditch across the street from 25 Hewitt, which drains from a culvert pipe under Hewitt Road. This video was taken at about 8am, 2 hours after peak rain after we had gotten about half an inch of rain all night long.

The runoff was still filled with sediment.

Video 2 - South Eastern corner of 25 Hewitt Road

Video 2 above shows the water coming down off the property into the severely compromised drainage ditch. You can see the water dropping several feet from the fence area where severe erosion has taken the soil away, and you can see the what gravel is left in the drainage ditch. You can also see the ditch abutting right up against Hewitt Road, thanks both to erosion and the owner's heavy equipment gouging out the ditch themselves. This water is also full of sediment.

Remember, this was 2 hours after the heavy rain.

Video 3 - North eastern corner of 25 Hewitt Road

Video 3 shows the same old story at the northern corner of the property along Hewitt. Dirty, sediment filled water is still flowing, again 2 hours after the heavy rains. The culverts under the driveways are still overwhelmed.

Video 5 - Behind 19 Hewitt Road

I took a break between Video 4 and later videos. The later videos were taken between 10am and 11am, 5+ hours after the heavy rain had stopped.

Video #5 shows the water flooding the entire back of 19 Hewitt Road. 5 hours after the heavy rain.

Video 6 - Closeup of lake behind 19 Hewitt

Video 6 shows the silt fences failing behind 19 Hewitt, while a huge amount of water is still being partially held back by what fencing is left, forming a lake.

Video 7 - Zoom out of lake behind 19 Hewitt Road

Video #7 shows the lake forming behind 19 Hewitt Road. Remember, at this point we only had half an inch of rain over the course of many hours over-night, and this video was taken just over 5 hours after the heavy rain.

The engineer claims the retention basins will deal with up to 4" of rain.

Unless those retention basins are dug halfway to China, we will question that claim.

Video #8 - Where is all the stabilizing vegetation we were told about?!

Video 8 is our first view of the Western back part of the property in awhile. The engineer told residents at the Township meeting that vegetation was stabilizing the property, and things were improving.

The above video, and the following ones, put lie to that claim. People at the meeting may have noticed no pictures were shown of the back part of the property. This is why.

It's still a Marscape. Orange / red mud is everywhere. No grass seeds or shrubs have been put down by the owner. Only a few bits of wild vegetation has tried to take root, and mostly failed.

Video 9 - More churned up mud in the back of the property

Video 9 shows more churned up, raw mud lining much of the back portion of the property, right up to the fence line.

We see no attempt at all to stabilize anything here.

Video 10 - Runnels in the mud, dirt piles abound

The 10th video shows where the back part of the property starts sloping downard. The deep runnels in the mud from over a month ago are still there. Illegal dirt piles, totally disallowed by Hunterdon County Soil Conservation District, are all over the place.

Video 11 - Silt fences failing everywhere, mudpocalypse in full swing

The 11th video shows the disasterr along the south western corner of the property. The silt fences are flattened, undermined, torn, or simply overwhelmed. The super silt is buckling and overtopped. Mud is spilling down small cliffs.

Video 12 - Southern portion of property

The last video shows us the southern part of the property, looking north.

Mud is everywhere. The destruction of the silt fences is more evident. The bolders are doing nothing. Mud is filling the few remaining vernal pools. All this nastiness is draining into Swan Creek.

At this point in time, I think some things are clear. None of the silt fences installed are working.

Those silt fences were installed at the direction of Hunterdon County Soil Conservation District.

None of the plans Hunterdon County Soil have forced have worked to date.

None of the fences have held.

Mud and water is still flowing.

The sediment basins approved by Hunterdon County Soils were based on incorrect, out of date elevation data that did not account for the actual state of the property.

19 Hewitt Road is still getting flooded out.

Hewitt Road culverts are still overwhelmed.

Mud and sediment is still flowing off the property.

Hewitt Road itself is still at risk of being scoured under, forming sink holes, and collapsing in places.

The Township Attorney is still employed by us, and charging us $185/hour for this

Hunterdon County Soil Conservation District has not fined the 25 Hewitt Road owner a single dime. Not even a penny. Nobody has fined the owner for anything at all.

Do you have any confidence in Hunterdon County Soil Conservation District getting the sediment basins right? In our Township Attorney?

The only person who seems to be doing their job is our Township Engineer, and he appears to be battling our own elected officials. And in terms of the Township, only Bob Balaam and Gary Hoyer have stood up to this nonsense and supported the engineer. The Majority seem afraid of their shadows to actually do anything useful beyond listening to an increasingly problematic Township Attorney.