Volunteers needed for Whippany River cleanup in Morristown, March 24

After the Whippany River flooded Morristown’s Bethel AME Church during Tropical Storm Irene last summer, citizens pitched in to clean up the house of worship.

Now, the church is asking for help cleaning the river.

“We cleaned up the church, but we really didn’t deal with the river,” said Pastor Sidney Williams Jr., who seeks volunteers to help the Whippany River Watershed Action Committee remove debris from the waterway near Bethel AME on March 24.

The cleanup is scheduled for 9 am until noon at the church on Spring Street. Garbage bags, gloves, hip waders, and safety vests will be provided, and the town has agreed to haul away the refuse that is collected. The rain date is March 31.

The idea is to remove fallen trees and trash that may exacerbate flooding near the church. According to Art Vespignani of the watershed committee, basic proposals for stabilizing the riverbank could come next month from Princeton Hydro, which began studying the problem last fall funded by a $17,744 grant from the Watershed Institute.

Video: The community cleanup of the church, Labor Day Weekend 2011

Princeton Hydro continues to gather data from federal, state, county and local sources, Art said via email. The environmental firm also is working on a program to train Bethel volunteers to remove invasive species from the riverbanks.

Based in Morris County, the nonprofit Whippany River Watershed Action Committee is comprised of volunteers representing 13 local governments, the county freeholders and corporate members. Their mission is to “preserve, protect and maintain the land and water of the Whippany River Watershed,” Vespignani said.

Pastor Sidney has not given up hope that flooding can be tamed in the Second Ward to allow construction of affordable housing near the river.

Restoration of the church, meanwhile, is a daunting task for the small, predominantly African American congregation.

The pastor said the church needs to raise about $200,000 to replace the kitchen ($135K), heating system ($46K) and walls ($20K) ruined when the basement filled with muddy water. The church plans to apply for a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant to help defray the costs. Because of an administrative lapse, the church was not covered by flood insurance when Irene struck.

“We’ve got a long journey ahead of us,” Pastor Sidney said.

MORE ABOUT TROPICAL STORM IRENE

 

 

Dugan’s Hooligans farewell, Dec. 30, 8 pm at the Minstrel: This time they really mean it

Tropical Storm Irene had a silver lining for Nancy Dugan: It delayed the inevitable until tonight, Dec. 30, at The Minstrel in Morris Township.

She has had all these extra weeks to anticipate the rescheduled farewell concert of Dugan’s Hooligans, the band she formed with her husband, George Leszczuk, and their children, Connor and Sharlys, about a decade ago.

“This is the ‘This Time We Really Mean It Farewell Show,‘” joked Nancy, a classically trained pianist and harpist who wonders if Connor, a gifted fiddler studying at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, ever will perform en famille after tonight.

“It’s fun to play with them,” the mom acknowledged. “I don’t think they think it’s fun to play with their parents… It probably will be years before Connor will play with me again.”

Their swan song had been scheduled for Sept. 2, but the Minstrel lost power in the storm’s aftermath. About 40 people who came to the venue were re-directed to the Dugan-Leszczuk living room in Madison for an impromptu house concert.

Sharlys, a high school senior, will do some solo gigs in coming months, including an opening spot for the Nuala Kennedy Band at the Minstrel in March.

In addition to singing and playing harp and tin whistle, Sharlys is a Celtic dancer. She pulled double duty on New Year’s Eve last year, singing two sets with the Harmonium Choral Society and two more with the Hooligans at First Night Morris County.

Video of Sharlys at First Night:

This will be the family’s first quiet New Year’s Eve in years. George, a Postal Service mechanic who got recruited on drums because “it was annoying watching him sitting having a beer” while they performed, is happiest about the band’s breakup, according to his wife.

“He gets the worst brunt of the whole thing,” said Nancy, who works as an esthetician in a plastic surgery practice. “He gets the equipment, and fixes it when it breaks down. He’s got the grunt work.”

The parents have no plans to tour as a duo. Nancy wants to learn Dixieland jazz on the piano, “so when I’m in the nursing home, I can entertain everyone!”

Meet the Hooligans: Please click icon below for captions

She is very proud of the Hooligans, of course. This modern spin on the Cowsills/Partridge Family paradigm served its purpose.  The parent-teen clashes that roil so many households largely were absent from theirs.

“I observed how people were with their teenagers. I didn’t want to have that,” Nancy said. “This way, we would always have something to communicate together. They weren’t wandering the streets. They were making some money (for music and dance lessons, harps, fiddles, etc.), and meeting adults.

“They grew up through that time without any problems, not even once. They never had any reason to prove anything. They were proving it every day,” on stage.

And if her talented kids surprise everyone and skip music careers, that’s okay, too.

“I just wanted them to have something they can do for the rest of their life that nobody can take away from them,” Nancy said. “That’s pretty cool.”

MORE ABOUT DUGAN’S HOOLIGANS

The Minstrel show starts at 8 pm at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship, on 21 Normandy Heights Road in Morris Township. Tickets are $7; children under 12 are free. Call (973) 335-9489 for details.

Connor and Sharlys perform in this video:

Study to seek flood remedies in Morristown’s Second Ward; pastor still hopes affordable housing can be built

Hydrologists have begun a study of the Whippany River, searching for ways to keep Morristown’s Bethel A.M.E. Church from flooding if there is a repeat of Tropical Storm Irene.

Bethel Pastor Sidney Williams Jr. hopes for more, however. He wants to resurrect plans for a 73-unit affordable housing complex on stilts at the corner of Coal Avenue and Center Street, abutting NJ Transit tracks on the site of a former junkyard and coal plant, near a stretch of river that flooded during Tropical Storm Irene.

“If the church is going to stay here, we’re going to have to address the issue” of flooding, said the pastor, whose church was heavily damaged by Irene. “The area has to be livable. And if it’s livable, why not build affordable housing?”

Proposed housing site, photographed last May. Please click icon below for captions.

The Whippany River Watershed Action Committee  this month received a $17,744 grant for the study from the Watershed Institute, an arm of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association funded by the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

“They will create a plan to restore the eroded stream segment that runs through the church property,” said Alyse Greenberg, program coordinator for the Watershed Institute.

Princeton Hydro has been hired for the task. The study has started and probably will continue until next fall, said Art Vespignani, facilitator for the Whippany River Watershed Action Committee.

“We’re hoping to find out what’s causing the problem at that spot by the church,” Art said. “We’re planning to produce a plan that allows us to seek money to correct the problem.”

Pastor Sidney estimates Irene caused $150,000 worth of damage to the church, which lacked flood insurance because of an oversight.

Nobody who experienced Irene in Morristown’s Second Ward will forget it.

The Whippany River surged over its banks, inundated the Cauldwell playground, roared across Martin Luther King Avenue and  Center Street and filled the basement of the Bethel A.M.E. Church with four feet of water. Apartment dwellers were rescued by rowboats. Tractor trailers sat half-submerged in a parking lot that became a brown lake.

“This is not an affluent congregation,” Art Vespignani said of Bethel A.M.E. The Whippany River committee “would like to do what we can to get the plans back on track” for affordable housing in the church neighborhood, if feasible. “To do that, we have to look at the entire flood plain there.”

While he welcomes the study, Mayor Tim Dougherty said he will await its findings before considering any development in the flood area.

“I applaud the pastor’s passion” in pursuing the grant, the Mayor said. “We both are on the same page and share the same passion for affordable housing.”

Even if the report concludes that the flooding can be tamed, officials may be hard-pressed to persuade residents who lived through Irene, said Phil Abramson of Jonathan Rose Companies, the town planner.

“It’s an engineering issue–and it’s also a question of public perception,” Phil said. “You need to be convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that people will be safe when you build.”

Residents heard a presentation at the church last spring about an affordable four-story apartment building that would be elevated above a parking level, sparing any flood damage to dwellings. In theory, anyway.

“If a hundred-year flood ever happened again, our engineers are saying it would only flood a foot or two,” said Larry Regan of Regan Development, which proposed funding the project via tax credits and a town housing trust that is supported by developer fees.

Based in Ardlsey, NY, Regan Development has constructed about 20 affordable projects in the tri-state area since the mid-1980s, Larry said. Whether Morristown joins the list depends largely on what the hydrologists recommend, he said.

“We’ve invested time and money and energy in this,” Larry said. “But we don’t want to build if it won’t produce a good quality of life for the residents. It’s up in the air right now.”

Volunteers mop up church after Irene.

After Irene, community members came together to clean up the church, shaving about $65,000 from the repair estimate, Pastor Sidney said. The congregation will rely on loans and grants for the rest of the work, he said.

Who is responsible for monitoring river conditions and clearing river-clogging debris are key questions for Princeton Hydro and the church. The pastor is bracing for opposition to the housing, regardless of the study’s outcome.

“People have written off the development project because of the flood,” Pastor Sidney said. “But there is still a great need for affordable housing.”

READ MORE ABOUT TROPICAL STORM IRENE

 

 

 

 

 

Rebuilding Morristown’s Market Street Mission home

After Tropical Storm Irene, Stephen Bienko and Nick Lombardi of College Hunks Hauling Junk hauled away lots of soggy junk from victims of the storm.

But they wanted to do more than just clean up the damage; they wanted to repair it. They reached out and soon Liquid Church was on board.

The evangelical ministry, which has a storefront in Morristown, made news over the summer with a “reverse offering” that handed out money instead of collecting it during services.

The church had been searching for a family to help via its program. So the congregation teamed with College Hunks, Habitat for Humanity and the Shauger Group to restore the Market Street Mission’s transitional home on George Street in Morristown.

Dozens of volunteers came on Saturday to completely renovate the structure, which was flooded during the storm. They also created garden plots that will be used to grow food.

The facility houses former substance abusers who have graduated from the Mission’s recovery program and are preparing to return to society.

Bill Lescohier was there Saturday with his camera to record this special day for MorristownGreen.com.

Photos by Bill Lescohier. Please click icon below for captions.

 

 

Morristown recipe for a 400-pound pumpkin: Add water. Lots of it.

Like, 50 gallons a day.

Then add copious amounts of sunlight. And nutrients. And condensed milk. And Grandma’s Molasses.

Oh, and make sure you start with a good seed.

The granddaddy of the 400-pounder on display Tuesday at Morristown’s second annual Pumpkin Illumination was an 1,100-pound monster that was the 2007 champion, said Mark Tobler, a part-time farmer/ chemical engineer who grew the Morristown gourd at the Early Street Community Garden with help from his wife, Marianne,  their daughter, Alexandra, 14, and other volunteers.

Please click icon below for captions.

If conditions are right, a pumpkin can grow 30- to 50 pounds a day.  Each pumpkin has a single season in the sun.

“That’s the allure,” said Mark, who learned from other pumpkin growers at a conference in Cooperstown, NY. “You have one season to try to do this.”

It took eight people to lug his pumpkin to the Vail Mansion on Tuesday. The pumpkin had chilled out for the last few weeks in a meat locker at the Acme supermarket in Morris Plains; Mark had to harvest it prematurely from the Early Street garden after Tropical Storm Irene stripped its leaves and caused the vine to rot.

If not for Irene, the pumpkin might have reached 600 pounds, Mark said.

Jim McCready of Morristown carved its spooky face. The pumpkin’s innards could yield about 15 pies, by Mark’s estimate. He said it was a great teaching tool for kids at the garden.

“The leaves are like solar panels, they are photosynthesis cells,” Mark explained.

He aims to grow an even bigger pumpkin for next year’s illumination, an event cooked up by Kadie Dempsey of the Arts Council of the Morris Area.  But a new world record?  That’s going to take an OCEAN of water.

This year’s champ, from Canada, tipped the scales at 1,818 pounds, Mark said.

SEE CHRISTIAN SCHULLER’S VIDEO ABOUT MORRISTOWN’S GREAT PUMPKIN

 READ MORE ABOUT TROPICAL STORM IRENE

 

Morristown Third Ward election site changed–thank Irene

Even as Morristown digs out from last weekend’s freak snowstorm, the impact of Tropical Storm Irene continues to be felt.

For next week’s election, on Nov. 8, the polling place for Districts 1 and 2 in the Third Ward will be moved from the Alexander Hamilton School to the cafeteria at Morristown High School.

The move is necessary because of Irene flooding damage at Alexander Hamilton, said town Clerk Matt Stechauner.

Voters can access the new polling place via the driveway by the Morristown High School sign, mid-block on Atno Avenue, the clerk said.

READ MORE ABOUT TROPICAL STORM IRENE

READ MORE ABOUT THE OCTOBER SNOWSTORM

Government opens Denville recovery center for Morris businesses hurt by Irene

The federal Small Business Administration has opened a center in Denville where owners of small businesses affected by Tropical Storm Irene can apply for loans, the Morris County freeholders announced on Thursday.

It’s at the Denville Municipal Building, 1 St. Mary’s Place, and is open from 8 am to 5 pm on weekdays. Oct. 31 is the deadline to file applications regarding physical property damage. Applications related to economic injury must be submitted by March 31, 2012.

Here are details from the SBA:

FROM THE U.S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION:

ATLANTA –The U.S. Small Business Administration announced today the opening of a Business Recovery Center (BRC) in Denville.  SBA representatives at these BRCs can provide one-on-one assistance to business owners seeking disaster assistance for losses caused by Hurricane Irene that occurred between Aug. 27 and Sept. 5.

“Businesses with physical damages or loss of revenue should seriously consider visiting a Center and applying for an SBA disaster business loan,” said SBA District Director Al Titone. “SBA’s disaster loans provide a way to help businesses get back in operation and the low interest rate and terms help make them more affordable than other types of financing.”  SBA also offers disaster loans to cover personal property losses and damage to primary residences. Interest rates are as low as 2.5 percent for homeowners and renters, 3 percent for non-profit organizations and 4 percent for businesses with terms up to 30 years.

The average SBA disaster business loan for this disaster is currently $121,000, which supports that businesses throughout New Jersey have sustained significant physical and economic losses.  SBA business applicants range from manufacturers and repair shops to restaurantiers, dentists, accountants and owners of rental properties.

SBA’s Customer Service Representatives will be on hand at the Centers to issue loan applications, answer questions about the disaster loan program, explain the application process and assist business owners in completing their applications.  Also, SBDC Counselors are available to assist businesses complete their application package.

Businesses and non-profit organizations of any size may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory, and other business assets.
The SBA may increase a loan up to 20 percent of the total amount of disaster damage to real estate and/or leasehold improvements, as verified by SBA, to make improvements that lessen the risk of property damage by future disasters of the same kind.

For small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small businesses engaged in aquaculture, and most private non-profit organizations, the SBA offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster.  Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance is available regardless of whether the business suffered any physical property damage.

Disaster loans up to $200,000 are available to homeowners to repair or replace disaster damaged or destroyed real estate.  Homeowners and renters are eligible up to $40,000 to repair or replace disaster damaged or destroyed personal property

To obtain additional assistance call, the SBA Customer Service Center at 800-659-2955
(800-877-8339 for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) or send an email to disastercustomerservice@sba.gov.   Those affected by the disaster may also apply for disaster loans electronically from SBA’s website at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/.

The filing deadline to return applications for physical property damage is October 31, 2011.
The deadline to return economic injury applications is May 31, 2012.

Clothing drive today, Oct. 1, for Irene victims in Morristown

Morristown’s Manahan Village was hit hard by flooding from Tropical Storm Irene. Berit Ollestad is rounding up clothes for distribution in Manahan Village today, Oct 1., from 2 pm to 4 pm at the Cauldwell Playground basketball court.

Berit, a Franklin Corners resident who organized a relief drive for Alabama tornado victims over the summer, is working with Manahan Village resident Shea Jonah on this one.  At 1 pm tickets will be handed out to residents of Manahan Village so they can have a place in line.

People who wish to contribute clothing either can drop it off this morning with Berit — contact her at  beritann213 AT yahoo DOT com  –  or they can drop it off at the playground.

“I’m primarily accepting infant, children’s and teen clothing in nearly new and good condition. But other items that would be appreciated would be shoes, toys, small housewares, etc.,” Berit said.

Please click icon below for captions

 

Here is Berit’s flyer:

Let’s Come Together and Share Some Clothing  w/One-Another

What: Limited amount of infant & children’s clothing available for parents that could use a helping hand.

When & Where: Saturday afternoon, October 1st @ The Basketball Courts in Manahan Village between 2-4pm

Additional Information

 

• This is open to all residents in Manahan Village  who have a legitimate need for help.
• One hour prior to event @ 1 pm, we will start handing out tickets for you to hold your place in line.
• We will be letting in five individuals at a time (with their children), where they will have an opportunity to select a total of 10 articles of clothing for their child(ren).

PLEASE be respectful of your neighbors and only take the 10 allowed, so everyone can benefit. You can go thru the line as many times as you wish!

It is my hope that this can work smoothly and more important, be successful and we can do it on a regular basis!

** Please Help Us Make This Clothing Fair a Success for Everyone**

READ MORE ABOUT TROPICAL STORM IRENE

Residents, officials tee off on JCP&L at hearing in Morris Plains

No information. Wrong information. Lies. Busy phone lines. No callbacks. Days without electricity. Years of faulty service.

These were some of the charges leveled against Jersey Central Power & Light on Tuesday in Morris Plains, where a parade of area residents and officials lambasted the utility for its performance in the days after Tropical Storm Irene.

The utility–which struggled to restore power for two-thirds of its 1.1 million customers after Irene–was accused of shoddy communication, a lack of backup planning and, in Morristown, a history of underground fires and exploding manholes.

“Why did South Street explode while power was being restored?” asked Morristown Councilwoman Alison Deeb, demanding an answer within 30 days to what caused an Aug. 31 manhole explosion that injured a motorist.

“What will it take–a loss of life–a child to be killed?” the councilwoman asked the state Board of Public Utilities, which ran the hearing at the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy.

“Jersey Central treats Morristown like a Third World nation,” said Morristown resident Linda Carrington. The BPU has ordered JCP&L to hire an independent expert to investigate the Morristown network.

But the main topic of the hearing was Tropical Storm Irene, still a sore spot with some residents in Morristown and Morris Township who lost power for a week in its wake. At least two citizens testified they were offline for nine days.

Public officials from across the region shared residents’ frustration at their inability to get information from JCP&L.

“There was no one for me to reach out to at Jersey Central Power & Light,” said Parsippany Mayor James Barberio, describing his township as “devastated,” with 860 houses flooded and power out everywhere after the storm.

Summit Mayor Jordan Glatt–who works in Morristown and has experienced underground electrical incidents in both towns–said Irene was bad but could have been worse.

“Make no mistake–we were lucky during this event. If it had occurred in winter, or during the heat of July, it would have been catastrophic for the state,” he said, insisting that JCP&L must improve its command-and-control system.

While local governments used websites, Twitter, cable TV and door-to-door visits to communicate with citizens, “JCP&L, by comparison, used fax machines,” he said.

Utilities need a common radio or cell phone system, he said, so repair crews can talk to each other in emergencies. This was not the case for crews who came from out of state, residents reported.

“I saw crews sitting for an hour on Skyline Drive. They were from Ohio. There was nothing they could do to help us,” said Morris Township resident Jennifer Fleischer, who lost power for seven days after Irene.

Four crews came through her area over that period, she said, giving different stories about when power would be restored. “We were lied to,” she said.

Over the last 25 years, Jennifer said, she has lost electricity at least 100 times. “Winter is coming. I wonder what that will be like. I am extremely frustrated with the situation.”

“You’re dealing with a company that has failed for years,” said Gordon Lorig of Morris Township. His neighborhood has experienced nine outages this year, exclusive of the storm, he said.

Eight of them were systemic, he said.

“Falling apart,” someone chimed in, explaining “systemic” to a stenographer.

Mayor Marshall Bartlett of Harding Township said JCP&L’s information “came much too late to get ahead of the anxiety and anger of our residents… It needs to be accurate and not overly optimistic…Many of our residents were out for six and a half or seven days. In Harding Township when you don’t have electricity, you don’t have water, either, because we have wells.”

Downed trees also posed a Catch-22: Town public works employees wouldn’t touch the trees if wires were attached, he said, and JCP&L wouldn’t touch the wires until the trees were removed.

Mayor Bartlett urged creation of a JCP&L hotline for municipal officials during emergencies. BPU President Lee Solomon replied that there was such a number–but it inadvertently became public and got inundated with calls.

When JCP&L shut off Richard Baldwin’s power in Morris Township, his sump pump stopped functioning, his basement filled with water, and he lost a new hot water heater and furnace.

He wondered why the utility had not done more to protect the Ridgedale Avenue substation, which flooded from the Whippany River and knocked Morristown and Morris Township offline.

“There’s no reason, with seven days’ warning of this storm, that people weren’t sandbagging the substation,” Richard said. “This was horrific and I sure hope Jersey Central does something about it–because they sure weren’t responsive to the citizens of Morris County.”

Storm debris has been blamed for damming the river, which breached a wall meant to stop flood waters exceeding those of a 100-year storm. A JCP&L spokesman, Ron Morano, said the utility realizes it needs to improve communications.

“We will look at all the issues folks here have addressed,” he said, acknowledging the public’s frustrations. At the same time, however, he pointed out that Irene “was a very, very bad storm. The hurricane caused a tremendous amount of damage to the system.”

After hearings across the state conclude next month, BPU staffers will sift through transcripts and written correspondence to make recommendations to the board, said BPU spokesman Greg Reinert.  Options could range from additional hearings to investigations, he said.

Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty praised JCP&L for a “phenomenal job” rerouting power around the downed substation. But he asked the BPU to press JCP&L for a timeline of when the substation will return online, so residents can prepare in case temporary power must continue through the winter. Should they buy generators, for instance?

“My question to the BPU is: How can you help us?” said Morristown Councilwoman Rebecca Feldman, expressing concerns about a winter storm–and Morristown’s  exploding manholes.

Margret Brady of Morristown said she has been fearful of Morristown’s streets ever since a manhole cover blew sky-high, moments after she had been standing next to it, some years back.  Another time, her car was damaged after hitting a dislodged manhole cover.

Last November, an odor of gas was reported at 14 Maple Ave., a new, ultra-modern building. Gas had infiltrated electric lines blocks away “and it came very close to blowing the whole new building up,” Margret said.

She cited infrastructure issues– sandy soil is a conduit for gas, road salt is corrosive to electric wiring–and questioned whether JCP&L and Public Service Electric & Gas paid attention to these issues in Morristown.

A JCP&L customer since 1956, Margret added:

“They never missed billing me for a single bit of power I have ever used. So I find it hard to understand they can be so efficient at calculating how much power you use and so inefficient with everything else.”

READ MORE ABOUT TROPICAL STORM IRENE

 

If you could not make the hearing, you can submit written comments to the state Board of Public Utilities until Oct. 28.

Email them to:

board.secretary@bpu.state.nj.us

Or send them to:

Kristi Izzo, Secretary of the Board
Board of Public Utilities
P.O. Box 350
Trenton, NJ 08625-0350

The BPU requests that comments reference Hurricane Irene in the subject line for emails and in the heading ofwritten correspondence.

We will publish your comments on MorristownGreen.com if you CC us at:  MorristownGreen AT gmail DOT com. (Replace AT and DOT with the appropriate symbols.)

Letter to the BPU: A Morristown resident’s fears about exploding manholes

Editor’s note: Although today’s state Board of Public Utilities hearing at 4 pm in Morris Plains is scheduled to address Jersey Central Power Light’s response to Tropical Storm Irene, Morristown’s exploding manholes may be raised as well. Here is a letter to the BPU from Morristown resident Siobhan Cavanaugh.

Dear Ms. Izzo;

 

---

Written comments may be submitted to the BPU via email to:

board.secretary@bpu.state.nj.us

or in writing to:

Kristi Izzo, Secretary of the Board
Board of Public Utilities
P.O. Box 350
Trenton, NJ 08625-0350

The BPU requests that comments reference Hurricane Irene in the subject line for emails and in the heading of
written correspondence. Comments will be accepted until Oct. 28, 2011. More hearings are anticipated.

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