Sorry Mr. Mayor. I will not comment on all of the fallacies of your comments on storm water management [WW-P News, May 16] but will address just one.
Washington Road at the tennis club has flooded since I was a child, long before development of the area. It is affected by two problems. During an initial heavy downpour the road itself will flood because of a shortage of culverts aligning the road on either side of the bridge. This flooding is generally shallow and short-lived, draining almost as soon as the rain stops. The second and deeper flooding happens sometime after it rains and can be as much as a day later. This flooding is the result of waters coming down Bear Brook and being stopped by a narrow water course and vegetation constrictions down stream of the roadway on the SRI property.
You comment that this flooding is the result of back flowing from Carnegie Lake is beyond physical possibilities. Even allowing for satellite errors, and using Google maps for reference, one can easily see the level of Carnegie at the dam is about 47 feet. Bear Brook at Washington Road is 53 feet, and the roadway either side of the bridge is 57 feet. In order to have a “backflow from Carnegie Lake” affecting Washington Road the lake would have to rise in excess of 10 feet before any flooding would occur. Now I am sure most will accept the fact that if Carnegie Lake rose that much the Princeton University boathouse would have been inundated.
I lost two classmates and a Princeton Township policeman in 1953 during one of the more severe floodings. While development is a contributing factor it is not all to blame. Several years back when Windsor Haven was developed that detention pond was designed not only to detain waters from the development but also to take high water coming down the Bear Brook and thus slow or reduce the flooding at Washington Road.
Thinking outside the box might be applied in the future. We should not follow the lead of Plainsboro when faced with the flooding of Plainsboro Road. They raised the bridge near the Walker Gordon development, but left the roadway at the original level.
One idea that might be effective would be to seek an easement from SRI to clear the debris and vegetation out of Bear Brook and improve the flow of that stream.
Howard Eldridge
Mather Avenue, West Windsor
