State of the Shore 2018: What Needs to Be Done

The NJDEP’s annual State of the Shore is today and this year we have a new Administration. Under the Christie Administration with DEP Commissioner Bob Martin, new Jersey failed to plan for climate change and sea level rise. That’s why we are urging Acting DEP Commissioner McCabe and the rest of the Murphy Administration to take efforts to protect us against sea level rise and make us more resilient against the next storm. Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, released the following statement:

“This year’s State of the Shore is different than the past eight years because we now have an Administration that believes in climate change and sea level rise and we need to see that reflected in our shore planning and conservation. We’re looking to the Murphy Administration to lead New Jersey into a future of resiliency and coastal protections. We need to reopen the Office of Climate Change and other coastal programs to prepare for climate impacts. New Jerseyans love their beaches and we need to work hard to make sure they are protected. The Murphy Administration has made commitments to environmental protection and clean water and now it’s time for them to lead and get it done.

“There are other important efforts that the DEP must take to make us stronger than the next storm. We must need to update our adaptation for sea level mitigation program, our shore protection plan, fix CAFRA loopholes and have a Coastal Commission. They must also update new FEMA flood maps for sea level rise, update building codes, and start to implement adaptation and hazard planning as part of their resiliency model. There is technology to test water quality within a few hours, which the DEP needs to invest in order to protect public health and our economy.

“The Murphy Administration must also work to reverse the many rule rollbacks under Governor Christie. This includes the Flood Hazard Rules that were rewritten, removing important protections for headwaters, increasing permit by rules, and letting a permit by certification process increase development in flood-prone areas. The proposed changes to the coastal regulations allow rebuilding without a permit or proposer oversight. The DEP must also update other water protection rules such as the Wetlands Rules and Water Quality Management Planning Rules.

“Over the last few years, the biggest problem down the shore has been the Christie Administration’s failure to deal with overdevelopment and stormwater runoff. Every time is rains, it pollutes our waterways and closes beaches. We have issues with sewage flowing into our waterways and dissolved oxygen levels dipping dangerously low. Our beaches continue to exceed national standards for bacteria from human and animal waste at higher levels. The Murphy Administration must address this problem by passing Legislation to implement stormwater programs, including Combines Sewer Overflows.

“We must focus more on natural protections rather than development on our coasts. Places where we actually had stronger protections in place fared much better during the storm. Without addressing sea level rise the frequency of severe storms, we are wasting money. Restoring natural features like stream buffers, regional storm water planning, and developing new flood storage areas will prevent further development in flood pone areas. We also need to buy out flood prone properties and mitigate our impact on climate change.

“The Barnegat Bay is now considered one of the most threatened bays in the nation. It has experienced loss of eel grass, increased jelly-fish, fish kills, and other ecological indicators. The Bay is also directly threatened by plants like Oyster Creek, which discharge super-heated water full of mercury and other metals into the Bay, killing millions of fish and fish larvae per year. The threats to the Bay are immediate and the failure to deal with land use has actually made it worse. In the last thirty years, urban land use cover has increased from 22 to 32 percent.

“It’s critical that the Murphy Administration protect our coasts because President Trump’s agenda has removed and seriously weakened many important programs for them. He will potentially eliminate the Coastal Water Quality Monitoring and Sea Grant programs altogether. This would mean less funding for the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium. He also eliminated the National Estuaries Program and other protections of coastal waterways. On top of all of that, Trump wants to open up the Atlantic to more oil drilling. This will mean more water pollution and more proliferation of greenhouse gasses that induce climate change.

“For the last eight years, New Jersey’s way of dealing with the coast is just pumping more sand on the beach that will wash out in the next storm. They have no real plan to protect our coasts. We want people to go to the shore and not have to worry about the potential for illness. We want coastal communities to be able to be resilient against climate change. We want to have healthy ecosystems in our waterways. We want to make sure we have clean water for the people who use our beaches. We hope we have a very good summer season, but unless we start changing our policies and working to protect our shores, we’re putting New Jersey’s entire coastal environment and economy at risk.”