Home > Uncategorized > A Jersey Twist on Private Gated Communities

A Jersey Twist on Private Gated Communities

DEP Approves Private Sea Wall, In Secret, With No Public Notice

Sea Walls Don’t Work and Will Make Problems Worse

waves crash over sea wall in Winthrop Mass. (2/8/13 - Getty Images)

 

New Jersey was really a giant science experiment,” he’d told me.  “New Jersey was the home of some of the first vacation spots and one of the first places to arm their beaches. Thanks to New Jersey we learned that any sort of hard stabilization—sea walls, groins, and jetties—was very damaging to the beach.  We learned that the damage occurs just by building something fixed by the beach—could be a highway, for instance. The problem of beaches is that they are eroding and always moving.  The beach tends to move toward that fixed thing and get narrower and narrower and narrower until it disappears altogether.” […] [Professor Pilkey]

[Update below]

In a stunning display of arrogance and incompetence, the Christie DEP just issued an “emergency” permit to construct a private sea wall in front of 15 homes in Bay Head.

That move reveals that DEP simply doesn’t know – or care – that the ocean & beach are publicly owned resources that they are responsible for stewarding.

DEP seems oblivious to the fact that the shore and barriers islands are a dynamic natural system – what happens in one beach location impacts other locations, along the shore, back bay, and inland as well.

And it also looks like DEP Commissioner Martin didn’t read my memo!  

Memo to Gov. Christie: Sea Walls and Engineering Don’t Work – Our Friends in Massachusetts Know That

ONLY AS A LAST RESORT: Flood and Erosion Control Structures

In the past, protecting coastal shorelines often meant structural projects like seawalls, groins, rip-rap, and levees. As understanding of natural shoreline function improves, there is a growing acceptance that structural solutions frequently cause more problems than they solve, and they are often not allowed under the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act. Structural protective measures often:

  • Are expensive.
  • Are not permissible under local and state regulations.
  • Cause erosion to beaches and dunes, leading to a loss of recreational and tourism resources and diminished storm damage protection.
  • Aren’t permanent, in fact require costly maintenance to ensure that they continue to provide protection.
  • Divert stormwater and waves onto other properties.
  • Adversely affect other properties by starving beaches of needed sediment sources.
  • Create a false sense of security.
  • Disturb the land and disrupt natural water flows.

Structural protection should only be considered as a last resort, knowing that it will be an ongoing expense and may increase overall damage to land, buildings, and other structures within the natural system. Whenever structural protection is pursued, hybrid technology (such as combinations of low-profile rock, cobble berms, and vegetative planting, or combinations of marsh plantings and coconut fiber rolls) should be considered as a means of reducing the negative impacts of the structure.

According to Todd Bates at the Asbury Park Press:

BAY HEAD — Without public notice, the state last month approved a plan to build a stone seawall in front of 15 oceanfront properties.

State environmental officials granted emergency approval for the project because they want “to ensure, for public health and safety reasons, we get this moving along to prevent future damage in future storms,” said Larry Ragonese, spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection.

“Public health and safety”? Are you kidding me? This is a private 1,300 foot long structure and it will not only not “prevent future damage” but will make current erosion and flooding problems worse.

The AP picked up the story, which ran under a more provocative – an apt – headline: Bay Head homeowners to build, finance 1,300-foot sea wall

Even beach engineering supporter Professor Farrell was forced to admit the problems created by sea walls:

Stewart C. Farrell, director of the Coastal Research Center at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, said if the seawall is extended as the core of a future dune system, its construction must be consistent along its length and have no gaps.

Gaps “will absolutely focus the force of the next storm,” and properties beyond the end of any seawall are also at risk, Farrell said. If waves consistently get to a seawall over time, “there will be no beach,” as was the case in Sea Bright before the first beach replenishment there in the 1990s, he said.

So, properties “beyond” this 1,300 foot long sea wall will be harmed, as will the beach.

So, why died DEP approve it? And secretly, with no public comment?

Todd Bates understands the issues, and clearly DEP press office realizes how foolish this move is:

The DEP’s Feb. 20 emergency approval came less than four months after Sandy shellacked many dunes, beaches and coastal homes in New Jersey. Officials have been scrambling to patch up vulnerable areas and many residents want to repair and elevate their flood-damaged homes. But experts say buyouts of vulnerable properties, turning them into open space and buffers against future flooding, should be part of the equation as a result of climate change, sea level rise and extreme weather.

Ragonese said “it’s important to note that this is an interim remedial measure (in Bay Head). Revetments are not the answer. It’s part of a solution.”

The Army Corps of Engineers is still working on plans to reengineer beaches “with proper dunes, with proper sand nourishment on our beaches,” he said. “We’re not suggesting to anybody we’re going to build seawalls up and down the coast and that’s going to prevent” water from entering houses.

All the science says we need to be “softening” our coastline, preserving the most hazardous locations as open space, and adapting to seal level rise and climate change (some call this “strategic retreat” or “adjustment”), not repeating the “engineering” and land use mistakes of the past.

When a state agency acts with such reckless disregard for the public interest and sound coastal science, planning and engineering principles, its time for lawsuits or legislative oversight to block them.

[Update – the project is described in press reports as both a sea wall and a revetment – they are different structures. I haven’t seen any designs,  so I thought I’d provide some info on the less bad “revetment”, from an ongoing adaptation and suitability analysis from NYC – curious that NYC planners note an “extensive permitting process”  as a “barrier” – guess they haven’t met the deregulatory Christie DEP!

 

Categories: Uncategorized Tags:
  1. No comments yet.
Comment pages
1 2 25906
  1. June 29th, 2014 at 02:01 | #1
  2. April 27th, 2015 at 16:50 | #2
  3. May 20th, 2015 at 15:24 | #3
  4. May 22nd, 2015 at 16:32 | #4
  5. May 24th, 2015 at 16:48 | #5
  6. May 26th, 2015 at 14:50 | #6
  7. June 2nd, 2015 at 09:09 | #7
  8. June 5th, 2015 at 11:22 | #8
  9. June 6th, 2015 at 20:33 | #9
  10. June 8th, 2015 at 01:35 | #10
  11. June 9th, 2015 at 00:59 | #11
  12. June 10th, 2015 at 21:58 | #12
  13. June 12th, 2015 at 08:39 | #13
  14. June 12th, 2015 at 18:43 | #14
  15. June 19th, 2015 at 04:37 | #15
  16. June 19th, 2015 at 23:44 | #16
  17. June 21st, 2015 at 22:39 | #17
  18. June 22nd, 2015 at 08:30 | #18
  19. June 25th, 2015 at 18:38 | #19
  20. June 25th, 2015 at 23:00 | #20
  21. June 26th, 2015 at 10:51 | #21
  22. June 27th, 2015 at 17:27 | #22
  23. June 28th, 2015 at 00:52 | #23
  24. June 28th, 2015 at 09:18 | #24
  25. July 1st, 2015 at 17:20 | #25
  26. July 2nd, 2015 at 03:06 | #26
  27. July 2nd, 2015 at 03:09 | #27
  28. July 2nd, 2015 at 13:20 | #28
  29. July 3rd, 2015 at 10:46 | #29
  30. July 3rd, 2015 at 11:37 | #30
  31. July 3rd, 2015 at 21:14 | #31
  32. July 4th, 2015 at 06:16 | #32
  33. July 4th, 2015 at 07:24 | #33
  34. July 4th, 2015 at 20:00 | #34
  35. July 5th, 2015 at 02:49 | #35
  36. July 5th, 2015 at 21:55 | #36
  37. July 6th, 2015 at 08:40 | #37
  38. July 6th, 2015 at 16:02 | #38
  39. July 6th, 2015 at 16:58 | #39
  40. July 6th, 2015 at 20:34 | #40
  41. July 7th, 2015 at 02:30 | #41
  42. July 7th, 2015 at 10:35 | #42
  43. July 8th, 2015 at 15:26 | #43
  44. July 8th, 2015 at 16:32 | #44
  45. July 8th, 2015 at 22:18 | #45
  46. July 9th, 2015 at 10:57 | #46
  47. July 9th, 2015 at 15:40 | #47
  48. July 9th, 2015 at 23:58 | #48
  49. July 10th, 2015 at 06:32 | #49
  50. July 10th, 2015 at 14:07 | #50
  51. July 10th, 2015 at 15:58 | #51
  52. July 11th, 2015 at 10:32 | #52
  53. July 11th, 2015 at 15:42 | #53
  54. July 12th, 2015 at 05:51 | #54
  55. July 12th, 2015 at 11:36 | #55
  56. July 12th, 2015 at 18:55 | #56
  57. July 13th, 2015 at 00:14 | #57
  58. July 13th, 2015 at 09:49 | #58
  59. July 13th, 2015 at 13:25 | #59
You must be logged in to post a comment.