Page 10 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • July 27, 2011 Waldwick Waldwick will try to get the Village of Ridgewood to help secure the necessary state permits to shore up the banks of the Ho-Ho-Kus Brook in the area of Dow/South Dow avenues. A Dow Avenue resident told the Waldwick Mayor and Council last week that the work needed to protect further erosion and future flooding in the area is way over his ability to accomplish. He asked that the governing body take on the project. “I’m looking for help. I can’t do it on my own. I want to protect my investment, but I don’t know how,” Michael Hansen told the mayor and council. Hansen explained that he is caught in a catch 22. He said the brook surrounds his property, and in a heavy storm such as Tropical Storm Floyd in 1999, the brook seeks to leave its s-path to go straight through the middle of his property and onto South Dow Avenue homes. Boulders shoring up the bank have fallen into the brook, resulting in heavy erosion and undermining of large trees and vegetation. Hansen said replacing the boulders to stabilize the banks would seem to be the solution, since they did the job during Floyd and kept the waters from rising over the banks. But, he said, costly permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection are required to bring in heavy equipment into the brook. He cannot apply for the permits, he said, even if he could afford to do so, because his property does not actually front onto the brook. Borough Administrator Gary Kratz said that permits and the engineering fees to get them can run between $25,000 and $30,000. “The DPW does not have the equipment. The (Bergen County) Mosquito Commission has the equipment, but they won’t do any work without the permits,” Kratz said. When work was done on the bank after Floyd, no state permits were needed, he said. No permits would be required if the work could be done by hand, without heavy machinery, he added. Brook threatens homes; help from Ridgewood eyed Uprooted trees on the Ridgewood side of the Ho-Ho-Kus Brook across from the Hansen property. Kratz said he would contact Ridgewood, which has an in-house engineering staff, to see if an arrangement could be made. Several Ridgewood properties front on the brook across from Hansen’s house. “You can see the undermining of their (Ridgewood homes) yards, and their fences will fall into the river,” Kratz said. “Perhaps they don’t have an understanding of what is going on,” he added. Kratz said that permission for access to the brook would have to be secured from homes fronting on it. Hansen said none of those homes are affected by the problem as much as his house is.