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:

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?