I'm interested in Reiner's comment on the combined stormwater and sanitary sewer system.
"If a developer comes and proposes a project, then they’re going to have to fix the system along Second Street and Atlantic Street and separate out those systems so the stormwater can go into the river and the sewage can go into [the Bergen County Utilities Authority], like it’s supposed to," Reiner said at the meeting.
To me this is a good sign that people are now thinking in the right direction. I have long advocated that the best way and cheapest way to solve this problem is to get stormwater out of the system, not build a new sanitary sewer system with literally thousands of major plumbing connections. The number of storm sewer grates draining into the combined system is only in the dozens. I continue to believe that a major discharge pipe can be built from the vicinity of Railroad Ave direct to the river, and it will drain east by gravity. It would be relatively shallow at Railroad Ave, and pretty deep around State Street, but that's OK. As long as it is fairly straight, at good 5' in diameter, and drains by gravity, it will work.