Yesterday, during House floor consideration of the Department of Agriculture funding bill, I appealed to Rep. Bonilla, the Chairman of the Agriculture Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee to convey to the Chairman the urgency of this matter and to request from him clarification as to whether, in his opinion, these repairs fell under the jurisdiction of the USDA NRCS.

This project is needed for several reasons, the most important of which is to provide flood protection for several 100,000 residents that reside in the townships in the surrounding area.  The Department of Agriculture's National Resource Conservation Service has the authority to undertake projects on watersheds that are smaller than 250,000 acres, and this project meets that requirement.  Although the Repaupo Creek is a small watershed, the tidegate sits on the Delaware River, and there is some question of whether a waiver from the Army Corp of Engineers will be required to do this project. Given the urgent need for this work to be completed, and given that New Jersey officials of the Department of Agriculture have expressed a desire and willingness to work on this project, Rep. Bonilla agreed that he would work with us and consider inserting language that grants jurisdiction to USDA NRCS to do the work repairing the Repaupo tidegate.  

I am extremely appreciative of Representative Bonilla for his attention in this matter.  Once we are armed with this new statement of authority, we will work with the local officials at the NJ USDA NRCS to find the funding to complete this project.