Welcome to the South Hunterdon Inland Sea and White Water Kingdom
- Aug 22
- 4 min read
We've always wanted to own water front property, and also have always enjoyed adventure sports like white water rafting and kayaking.
Thanks to 25 Hewitt Road, we can live our dream without even having to move!
We propose that 25 Hewitt road be renamed the Great South Hunterdon Inland Sea and White Water Kingdom. Maybe we can get Big Bear Gear to offer kayaking and log flume adventures.
All kidding aside, the property at 25 Hewitt Road continues to deteriorate, and now even minor storms or even single thunder storm cells can cause extensive flooding and runoff.
On Thursday, August 20th, 2026, we were hit with two thunderstorms. One very minor one at about 3pm, and a second slightly more intense and longer storm around 6pm. These were not like the storms that caused extensive flooding in Northern NJ and even launched some tornadoes in NY and Delaware. These were small isolated cells that moved through relatively quickly.
Storm #1 - 3pm, moderate intensity, 15 minutes
Driveway flooding. Gravel line does nothing.
Culvert pipe backing up.
Water infiltrating around super silt fence at Northern corner. Hay bales useless.
Water ponding across Hewitt Road.
Water cascading around super silt fence on southern corner of property.
This small storm merely created a lake, not a sea. Let's dub it Lake Hewitt for now.
Storm #2 - 3pm, heavy downpour, 30+ minutes
The follow-on storm three hours later was not only more intense and longer lasting, but the ground was already saturated from the 3pm flooding.
As a result, the lakes became seas, the creeks became raging torrents, and the orange mud did flow. The rain was coming down hard while I was filming, and as a result some of the footage is blurry from camera lens getting wet and foggy.
Southern Corner torrent.
Water nearing top of super silt fence, pouring over top of hay bales at northern corner.
Second view of water pouring over hay bales and the wooden fence slats.
Secondary regular silt fence failing, water pouring over it.
Driveway flooding more extensively.
Approaching Northern corner, much worse flooding.
Extensive flooding on Hewitt Road at northern corner.
The holy shit video. White water - well, orange creamsicle water - pouring over silt fence and hay bales. All this shit is running into the wetlands east of Hewitt Road and ultimately draining into Moore's Creek.
Behind 19 Hewitt Road - we have three consecutive seas forming, one around super silt fence, another around the secondary silt fence, and a third around the tertiary one. All three silt fences were undermined in multiple places, and the tertiary silt fence failed outright in some spots.
Video panning over the extensive water forming behind the super silt and regular silt fences behind 19 Hewitt Road. Apologies for the blurriness.
Back part of property showing the devestated orange mud landscape with extensive deep runnels in the mud.
Back of property where it starts to slope down more severely. Very deep runnels in the mud. Almost no shrubbery at all, no grass down. Just raw earth and mud and water, and perhaps a few of my tears thrown in for good measure.
Back south western corner of property.
Back corner super silt failure. Orange mud collecting in one of the few vernal pools left.
Boulder field south of the property. NJDEP initially determined that the sediment runoff was likely being absorbed by the vegegation before potentially impacting Swan Creek's unnamed tributaries. That may have been true a few weeks ago, but the property condition continues to get worse, and the super silt fence failure clearly lead to extensive mud infiltration into the boulder field.
Continuing south, right at the edge of the powerline cut, you can see the extensive orange runoff coming from 25 Hewitt and going right into the cut.
At the actual high tension powerline cut in the tree canopy. I am quite a distance from the property now and you can see the orange water flowing unabated.
A little further into the cut we can see the water is several inches deep and covering my shoes.
A final view of the water and sediment flowing out into the powerline cut and ultimately Swan Creek.
Some people have opined online that all this flooding and runoff is not the property owner's fault, and that it is just the natural result of increased extreme weather.
I disagree, and apparently NJDEP, HC Soil Conservancy, West Amwell Township, and others do too. Yesterday's storms were not extreme weather, at least not here in West Amwell. It was a plain old summer storm that has been common to the North East since forever.
The reason this is happening is due to activities on the property. All done without any permits, and in contradiction of a number of NJ State statutes. What is causing this is a combination of factors:
Extensive tree cutting. This used to be heavily forested woods. The owner cut hundreds of trees down, not just dead ash trees but many live healthy ones as well. He also clear cut away all shrubs and grass. There is very little vegation left. This is bad because plants and trees absorb water and help keep the water onsite instead of running off.
Extreme soil compaction. This was unworked, unused woodland for hundreds of years. The owner owns a construction company and has many pieces of heavy equipment and earth movers running all over the property. He has been running those machines over the property for years now. His three driveways made it all worse.
Improper grading. The owner seems to have no notion of water flow or how to properly grade a property.
Incorrectly installed silt fences. The silt fences were all installed wrong, and the system is incomplete. This concentrates the water to a few exit points, making flooding worse.
No modern storm water management features. There are no rain gardens or swales or retention basins anywhere in sight. All the silt fences in the world are just a temporary mitigation measure, not a real solution. The real solution is to have proper water management on the 20 acre site. Today there is exactly zero of this.
The Township voted this week to take the owner to Superior Court. Not a moment too soon. Remember, these weren't even big storms. Everyone in the area has their fingers crossed and prayer beads clutched everytime the National Weather Service puts out a severe weather alert. A real Nor'easter could wipe us out extensively.
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