During my initial campaign for Commissioner, and in the first year, one of the things that was readily apparent in Ardsley was that stormwater concerns were of the utmost importance. Along those lines, the residents of the 600 block of Monroe Avenue had a serious concern- “How do we stop flooding on our block during a heavy downpour?!”
Indeed it was apparent that there was a stormwater issue on Monroe during heavy rains. The physical characteristics of the block lent themselves to flooding- the middle of the block was basically the bottom of a bowl, and when it rained heavily, water wanted to pond there. In an ideal world, water that wanted to pond would be removed via storm drains that outflow to a nearby waterway. This was intended to be the case on the 600 block of Monroe. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t working.
In one of the storms, water was seen flowing upward from a drain, with quite a bit of pressure behind it. The question was, “WHY?”. As it turned out, a concrete collection box below Monroe was not adequately sized to handle the flow of stormwater, nor was the pipe that carried stormwater away from it, down to the Sandy Run. Due to the undersized nature of both, pressure was too great to allow stormwater to escape from the collection box, and water flowing down from uphill (running down from Edge Hill) had no where to go but up from a stormwater drain in a resident’s front yard.
A study was commissioned by BCM Engineering, who’s findings reflected what’s noted above.
See the presentation of BCM Engineering’s findings at the May, 2019 Public Works Committee Meeting. Of note, the engineer’s modeling validated the concerns seen by homeowners on the block- that the installed engineering solution was inadequate.
Subsequently, the Board of Commissioners approved a sum of money to correct the inadequate condition that existing below Monroe and Hamel Avenues. A fix was implemented, and completed in the spring of 2020.