Why the Passaic River floods in South Bergen: Garfield, Rutherford, Lyndhurst and North Arlington
The Passaic is the slowest flood in Bergen County. It can keep rising for two days after the sky has cleared, and for three of these towns it is not even the main source of risk.
The Passaic River reaches Bergen County at the bottom of a 935 square mile basin whose central wetlands hold floodwater back and release it slowly. Below Dundee Dam at Garfield the river is tidal. That combination produces floods that arrive late and drain slowly. This guide sets out what the gauges, the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA and the county hazard plan record for Garfield, Wallington, Rutherford, Lyndhurst and North Arlington, including why most of the mapped flood zone in three of those towns is on the Meadowlands side.
The short version
- The Passaic basin covers about 935 square miles, and upstream wetlands hold floodwater back, so the lower river crests late. During Irene it crested two days after the Saddle River did.
- The river is tidal below Dundee Dam at Garfield. FEMA attributes the principal flooding in southern Bergen County to the tidal stages of Newark Bay.
- At the Dundee Dam gauge, major flood stage is 7 feet. The weather service lists Riverside Place and Somerset Street in Garfield flooding at 6 feet and River Drive impassable at 6.5 feet.
- About 51 per cent of Lyndhurst, 29 per cent of Rutherford and 21 per cent of North Arlington lie in the FEMA flood zone, most of it on the Meadowlands side by the county's earlier riverine and coastal split.
- The Passaic flood tunnel authorised in 1990 was never built and the study is suspended. The Army Corps floodwalls now in design are in Newark, not Bergen County.
- The riverbed is a Superfund site and New Jersey prohibits eating fish or crab from the tidal Passaic.
The bottom of a very large basin
The Passaic River watershed covers about 935 square miles, roughly 84 per cent of it in New Jersey, according to the state commission that reported to the Governor on Passaic flooding in 2011. The Army Corps of Engineers divides it into three regions and calls the last of them the Lower Valley: 173 square miles between Little Falls and Newark Bay. Bergen County meets the river only in this final stretch. The state commission describes the lower section as including the tidal estuary to a few hundred feet downstream of Dundee Dam, and the state environmental department places the head of tide at Garfield. The Environmental Protection Agency measures the tidal river as 17 miles, from its mouth to Dundee Dam, and puts the mouth of the Saddle River at river mile 15.6, below the dam. So Garfield and Wallington sit at the point where a river draining most of northern New Jersey meets the tide, and Rutherford, Lyndhurst and North Arlington line the tidal reach below.
Why the water arrives late
What sets the Passaic apart from the smaller rivers nearby is timing. The Army Corps report explains that the floodplain of the Central Basin, the broad wetland area upstream, acts as a natural detention reservoir and significantly retards peak flood flows. The state commission makes the same point: flows from the fast-responding streams of the upper basin are attenuated by natural storage in the central section. The Corps adds that in basin-wide floods the Pompton River peaks at Two Bridges from 24 to 48 hours earlier than the Passaic does, and that the streams of the lower valley peak much earlier than the main river. The gauge dates show the effect. During Irene the Saddle River at Lodi crested on August 28, 2011. The Passaic at Little Falls and at Dundee Dam did not crest until August 30. No official source reviewed for this guide gives a travel time for the crest to reach the Bergen towns, so none is stated here. The practical lesson stands without one: on the Passaic, the end of the rain is not the end of the flood, and the river can still be rising two days later.
What the Dundee Dam gauge means for Garfield
The National Weather Service forecast point nearest these towns is the Passaic River at Clifton, at Dundee Dam. Action stage there is 3.5 feet, minor flood stage 4.5 feet, moderate 6 feet and major 7 feet. The highest crest listed is 8.4 feet on October 10, 1903, which FEMA still calls the maximum flood of record on the Passaic. The highest modern crest is 5.9 feet on August 30, 2011 (Irene), followed by 5.0 feet on March 16, 2010 and 4.93 feet on April 18, 2007. The weather service publishes what each level does, and several of its statements name Garfield streets. At 4.5 feet River Drive in Elmwood Park begins to flood. At 6 feet Riverside Place in Garfield begins to flood, as does Somerset Street. At 6.5 feet River Drive in Garfield becomes impassable and Cambridge Avenue begins to flood, including residential properties. At 8 feet flooding stretches to Palisades Avenue, and at 8.5 feet Midland Avenue is flooded. Irene, at 5.9 feet, came within a tenth of a foot of the level at which the first Garfield streets are listed.
The tide pushing from the other end
Below the dam a second force is at work. The Army Corps states that flood stages in the Passaic downstream of Dundee Dam are tidally influenced from Newark Bay, and FEMA's flood study says the principal flooding in southern Bergen County results from the tidal stages of Newark Bay, which affect both the Hackensack and the Passaic. During Irene the USGS tidal gauge on the Passaic at Newark recorded a peak stage of 7.11 feet, 0.64 feet higher than the previous record set on March 13, 2010. The sources are not perfectly aligned here, and it is fairer to say so than to smooth it over. The 2026 county hazard plan notes that, according to FEMA, all portions of the Passaic within Bergen County are identified as non-coastal, which is a mapping classification. FEMA's own narrative describes tidal stages as the principal flood source. For someone living on the tidal reach, the working assumption should be that both matter: a river crest that coincides with a high tide has less room to drain.
Rutherford, Lyndhurst and North Arlington flood from two sides
These three towns have the Passaic on one side and the Meadowlands on the other, and the records suggest the Passaic is the smaller part of their exposure. The 2026 county plan puts 50.92 per cent of Lyndhurst, 29.08 per cent of Rutherford and 21.29 per cent of North Arlington inside the FEMA one per cent annual chance flood zone. An earlier draft of the county plan, from 2014, split each town between riverine and coastal flooding on a different mapping basis. It showed Lyndhurst at 4 per cent riverine and 46 per cent coastal, Rutherford at 5 and 25, and North Arlington at 5 and 16. The current plan lists portions of all three under coastal surge from the Hackensack River, and all three are Meadowlands District municipalities. Garfield and Wallington are the opposite case. The 2014 draft showed no coastal share for either, and the 2026 plan puts 7.70 per cent of Garfield and 17.58 per cent of Wallington in the one per cent zone, with Wallington rising to 31.46 per cent once the 0.2 per cent zone is added. Their risk is the river.
The insurance record, town by town
The county plan prints flood insurance figures for each municipality as of October 2024, and they do not follow the map percentages neatly. Wallington, a small borough, has 725 recorded losses and 104 repetitive or severe repetitive loss properties. Lyndhurst has 498 losses and 111 such properties. Garfield has 364 losses and 36. Rutherford has 268 losses and 54. North Arlington has 57 losses and 11. Repetitive loss properties are, broadly, those with repeated flood insurance claims, so those counts are the clearest public indicator of places that flood again and again. Two cautions apply. These are whole-town figures covering every flood source, including the Saddle River in Garfield and Wallington and the Meadowlands side of the other three, and they say nothing about any particular address. And the county totals printed beneath the plan's insurance tables do not match the sum of the rows, so this guide quotes the rows as printed and not the totals.
What has been proposed, and what protects Bergen today
The best-known plan for the Passaic was a tunnel. The Army Corps describes a project authorised in 1990 built around a main tunnel 20.4 miles long and 42 feet in diameter, with a shorter spur. It was never built, and the Corps fact sheet states that the study has been suspended and that no further work will be conducted unless requested by the State of New Jersey. The Corps is designing floodwalls under its Passaic River Tidal Protection Area project, but that work is in Newark: six floodwall segments and one levee segment totalling about 4,850 feet. No Bergen County municipality is part of it. The 2011 state commission made 15 recommendations, among them floodway buyouts, home elevations, clearing of the channel and a flood warning system. The Corps' flood warning system for the basin uses 56 stream and precipitation gauges. Within Bergen, FEMA records channel improvements on two Garfield tributaries, Fleischer Brook and Schroeders Brook. Nothing in these records describes a structure protecting the Bergen bank of the tidal Passaic.
What is known about the riverbed
The lower Passaic is also a federal Superfund site, and it is worth being exact about what the authorities have said. The Environmental Protection Agency states that sediment at the bottom of the river is contaminated with dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls, pesticides, metals and other compounds, and that New Jersey prohibits the consumption of fish and crab from the tidal river because of contamination by PCBs, dioxin and mercury. The agency also records the removal of contaminated sediment from a mudflat on the east bank of the river in Lyndhurst. The health risk EPA describes comes from eating fish and crab from the river over years. None of the EPA or state documents reviewed for this guide says anything about contaminants in floodwater or on flooded land, and this guide draws no conclusion of its own on that. The ordinary rule applies here as everywhere: treat river floodwater as contaminated, keep children and pets out of it, and leave the clean-up of anything it has soaked to people equipped for it.
What this means if you own property here
Watch the river for longer than feels necessary. The Passaic at Dundee Dam and at Little Falls both have National Weather Service forecast pages, and the crest can come two days after the rain. If you live in Garfield, compare the forecast crest at Dundee Dam with the street list above. If you live on the tidal reach, check the tide times as well, because a crest that meets a high tide drains more slowly. If you live in Rutherford, Lyndhurst or North Arlington, find out which side of town your risk comes from, since the records point to the Meadowlands side as the larger share. Stay out of floodwater and treat standing water indoors as an electrical hazard. Flood is a separate policy from homeowners insurance, and FEMA states a new policy normally takes effect 30 days after purchase. Whether a specific address is in a mapped flood zone is a question for the FEMA Flood Map Service Center.
Common questions
Why does the Passaic keep rising after the rain has stopped?
Because most of the water comes from far upstream. The Army Corps of Engineers explains that the wetlands of the Central Basin act as a natural detention reservoir and significantly retard peak flood flows. During Irene the nearby Saddle River crested on August 28, 2011, while the Passaic at Little Falls and Dundee Dam crested on August 30.
Is the Passaic River tidal in Bergen County?
Yes, below Dundee Dam. The state places the head of tide at Garfield, and the Environmental Protection Agency describes the tidal river as running 17 miles from its mouth to the dam. The Army Corps states that flood stages downstream of the dam are tidally influenced from Newark Bay. FEMA flood maps nonetheless classify the Passaic in Bergen County as non-coastal.
Was a flood tunnel built for the Passaic River?
No. A project built around a 20.4-mile main tunnel was authorised in 1990 but never constructed. The Army Corps of Engineers fact sheet states that the study has been suspended and that no further work will be conducted unless requested by the State of New Jersey.
Does the Passaic or the Meadowlands cause more flooding in Lyndhurst and Rutherford?
The county records point to the Meadowlands side. A 2014 draft of the county hazard plan showed Lyndhurst as 4 per cent riverine and 46 per cent coastal flood zone, and Rutherford as 5 and 25. The current plan lists portions of both under coastal surge from the Hackensack River. Those are town-wide mapping figures, not a statement about any one property.
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