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WILKES-BARRE — It wasn’t water under the bridge for Mayor Tony George, who kept up his dispute with a county official Tuesday over the response to the threat of flash flooding.
George continued to assert Chris Belleman, executive director of the Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority, ignored a call Monday to help deal with high water in Solomon Creek caused by heavy rains.
There was no flooding, but the water rose to a height of approximately 6½ feet. That was enough to force city officials to install floodgates on bridges over the creek that runs through South Wilkes-Barre and into Hanover Township, where it flows through floodgates operated by the authority into the Susquehanna River.
Just one of the eight gates was opened, and George maintained that all of them should have been so the creek did not pose a threat. The creek wall has a temporary patch where a section collapsed in December and city officials are in the early stages of a $4.5 million reconstruction project on the Depression-era infrastructure.
“There was enough notice (Monday) that we were having flash floods. Everybody had it. And he wasn’t concerned about it,” George said.
Belleman responded by saying the mayor was wrong.
“He’s 100 percent incorrect. It’s all based on flow. There just wasn’t enough flow to justify having (the gates) open,” Belleman said.
City officials were in contact with the county Emergency Management Agency and asked it to notify the authority about activating its pump station at the floodgates to lower the creek level or open the gates, George said. But EMA could not get in touch with anyone from the authority, said the mayor.
“And I think that’s obscene. No matter what (Belleman) says. That’s obscene that he knows there’s going to be a flash flood and he’s not there, not concerned,” George said.
‘Going to get a letter’
In his office at City Hall, George referred to a document that contained a map of the river and the various levels at which flooding occurs in unprotected areas, and when gates are closed and pumping stations activated.
Someone had used a pink marker to highlight the 18-foot level and the type next to it that read: “Gates closed by county Solomons (sic) Creek, Hanover Twp, Plymouth pumping stations activated.”
At the time of the high water in the creek, the river level was approximately 4 feet in Wilkes-Barre.
The mayor also showed what he said was a photograph taken from a vantage point looking down at the open gate and muddy water flowing through it.
“Apparently, the gates have been closed and they’ve been closed for awhile. Seven of the eight gates were closed. One was open. So you have just about a 40-foot canal with 6 ½ feet of water rushing into a 4-foot opening,” George said.
“What happens with that, the water’s not going to go through. It’s going to back up and that’s what happened (Monday).”
The gates should either have been open or closed so the pump that’s part of the Wyoming Valley Levee System could be activated to shoot the creek water into the river, George said, adding, “It’s one or the other.”
That’s not true, Belleman said. “There is simply nothing that we could do,” he explained.
The water was so low that it flowed right through the pump station into the river and didn’t require opening more than one gate, Belleman said.
A lot of debris washed down the creek and collected at the Sans Souci bridge. PennDOT, which maintains the bridge, dispatched a crew with an excavator to clear the debris. Belleman said if all the gates were opened and debris got into the pump station, it could be an expensive repair because the pumps cost $1 million each.
“We can’t afford to have them damaged,” Belleman said.
George expressed his concerns about the authority’s lack of action to U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, in an email Monday. Belleman replied back to George, explaining his position on the gates and pump station.
That didn’t satisfy the mayor, who said he’s got more to say to Belleman.
“He’s going to get a letter,” promised George.
Belleman already knows what he’ll do when he gets it.
“I’ll respond very politely,” he said.
