It turns out the celebration of a New Jersey Department of Transportation grant to repair a chronically flooded roadway in Ocean Gate is just the tip of the iceberg for the tiny borough.

According to Borough Engineer Vinnie Contreras the repairs to Monmouth Avenue is part of a much larger scheme program that has been in the works for over a decade. He says prior to Monmouth Avenue, they've already made repairs to  several roadways and the  roadways are included in a master plan and listed according to priority.

Contreras says the infrastructure is so old and some of the pipes are made of terracotta which puts it at risk of crumbling. He says "if we don't fix this, we're just going to have problems with flooding, the water is not going to go anywhere and the creation of sink holes."

When talking about plans for Monmouth Avenue that was just awarded $300,000 for work, he says they "have to replace the whole section of pipe between inlet to inlet. So with the project ,we're replacing 22 inlets about 19 hundred being storm drainage pipes. So all the intersections are going to be modified and everything is going to be fixed."

Contreras says after Monmouth Avenue, they'll move on to repair of four more roads that will eventually complete its priority road replacement list. He stresses the state's recent $300,000 award is not the only aid they get. The county helps a lot too. He says they maintain some of the storm drains that are under the County's jurisdiction. He says they approach the projects in two phases to be able to afford it.

Contreras says Ocean Gate's issues are not unfamiliar to coastal communities through out the Jersey Shore. He says the sandy conditions allows a lot of infiltration from the Ocean that generate problems with the pipes. He says they believe the only solution is to replace the terracotta pipes with PVC pipes.

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