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Letter: New Road flooding issues must be addressed

March 22, 2019

The following letter was sent to state and DelDOT officials, with a copy submitted to the Cape Gazette for publication.

You have no doubt heard about the situation here on New Road just outside the City of Lewes, adjacent to the Groome Church property. A large pond sits at the edge of the property, just east of Lynn Road, and I suspect the pond is there because the water table is so high, and the infiltration rate is low.

With the rain this week, the pond overflowed onto the road, causing dangerous conditions. A pothole also formed, causing at least one car to blow its tire. When the water froze on the road, another car skidded on it and ended up in the ditch, with water up to its headlights. The pothole has been filled by DelDOT, but the icicles on the vegetation at the side of the road from the cars splashing water remained for a few more days. 

My concern is that plans to widen New Road are being discussed, and that means more impervious surfaces in an area that cannot accommodate it. We have a very high water table on this side of town. Canary Creek and the Great Marsh fill with heavy rains (which are more frequent these days), nor’easters, and tidal surges. That water has nowhere else to go but onto the road and our properties.

Months ago I shared photos of our front yard and our neighbors’ front yards with you to show you how the water can encroach 75 feet or so onto our property when the conditions are right. Sea level is rising, and our land in this area is settling (land subsidence), putting us all at increasing risk of losing our properties to flooding in the very near future.

One way to slow this problem is to impose a moratorium on development on New Road and the surrounding areas until we can ensure that additional houses will not impact existing houses.  I know some of the ideas for the New Road Corridor Management Plan include widening the road.

Please do not allow the road to be widened. Instead, let’s find a way to buy the land up and down the road as open space. I know some of you worked with our city and tried to buy the Groome Church property as open space, and I appreciate that.

But we need to keep trying. It seems to be the only way to protect the Great Marsh, the water quality of Canary Creek, and our homes. And I also appreciate the efforts you have made, I.G. Burton, in Sussex County to decrease density of housing near wetlands (the recently approved ordinance to exclude tidal wetlands from the density calculation, the discussions on the amount of buffer required, etc.).

In the City of Lewes, we are revisiting the May 2018 annexation ordinance, and so far, it looks like we may follow suit and exclude tidal wetlands from the density calculation. I hope we will also exclude wetlands from the open space requirements, increase the amount of open space required, and increase the buffers. 

I recently learned that the stormwater runoff from the N/V Canary Creek development on the north side of New Road was channeled under New Road and into the ditch in front of the Pilottown Reserve development. Now I understand why that ditch has widened and threatens to erode adjacent properties and spill over onto the road. It doesn’t seem fair that one development can send all of its runoff into an area that has too much stormwater runoff already! It is backing up into many of our yards.

One positive note is that the City of Lewes is participating in the Resilient Community Partnership (Coastal Municipalities Impervious Surface Coverage Project), led by Rehoboth Beach (others include the Town of Henlopen Acres, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, South Bethany, and Fenwick Island). Kelly Valencik, a planner from DNREC’s Delaware Coastal Programs, will do a presentation on the status of this project at the April 8 mayor and city council meeting here in Lewes. If you go to the orange link at the following link, you can see a summary of the presentation that was recently given in Rehoboth: www.cityofrehoboth.com/news/general/resilient-community-project-overview-rehoboth-beach

I hope lots of people will attend to show our city representatives how important this issue is! Maybe there is a chance that ordinances to limit the percentage of impervious surfaces in our towns will be developed. One idea they may consider is to charge fees for stormwater runoff based on the amount of impervious surface. That’s one way to encourage green infrastructure, such as pervious driveways, rain barrels and rain gardens.

Sen. Lopez, Rep. Smyk, and Rep. Schwartzkopf: Can a statewide impervious surface ordinance be developed and approved? These kinds of things are being done in New Castle and Newark, and we need it to cover the entire state. Such an ordinance would limit impervious surface to a certain percentage, depending on the type of land use.

When impervious surface covers 10 percent of land, this can already have significant negative impacts on our water quality and on the ability of the water to infiltrate into the ground. I am extremely concerned, and I’m thinking we may need to choose a new retirement location, maybe up in the mountains somewhere. The City of Lewes would benefit from this because they get 1.5 percent transfer fees for every house that is sold. Hmmm, is that what is going on?

Allow developers to destroy our beautiful area, and benefit from the transfer fees that they get when we are forced to leave? I hope not, but sometimes I think our comments are being ignored by at least two of our city council members.

The time to do something about this was years ago, but I think we should try to catch up and do the right thing now so that we will not end up living on unwelcome waterfront property, needing to take a kayak for our shopping trips.

Marta Nammack
Lewes

 

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