Rutgers Sea Level Rise Maps Being Ignored by DEP

But the WSJ discloses that the NJ DEP is telling people to consult the flawed FEMA maps, not the Rutgers maps:

The New Jersey map stems from a $273,000 NOAA grant Rutgers received in 2009. The map has been tested by 60 coastal officials, and it was completed two weeks ago. Federal officials hope research institutions in other states undertake similar efforts.

“People are hungry for this data. The watershed moment was Hurricane Sandy,” said Doug Marcy, a hazards specialist at the NOAA Coastal Services Center in Charleston, S.C.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is directing homeowners rebuilding after Sandy to consult with FEMA’s flood maps—which don’t account for sea-level rise—not the Rutgers map. But DEP spokesman Larry Hajna said the Rutgers tool could help residents affected by Sandy visualize “why it’s important to rebuild to the highest elevation possible.”

DEP is handling this very poorly and simply not telling the truth.

In fact, the DEP Emergency Rule anticipates revisions to the FEMA ABFE maps – elevations are likely to go even higher when Sandy, Sea level rise, and climate change are considered.

DEP knows this. But they don’t want to tell people that elevations are going even higher and rebuild will be even more costly, because it will slow down the pace and scope of rebuilding, increase financial investment risks, and thereby undermine shore economic redevelopment.

Remember, Gov. Chrisitie has pledged to “Rebuild Now!” and he needs all those jobs and economic activity going into a fall relection campaign.

But enough of the politics, let’s get back to the wonk stuff.

Under the DEP emergency rule, any revised FEMA final maps automaticlly revise the NJ maps.

It is not our objective to discredit or block the FEMA maps, just the opposite. Let me explain what’s going on here and what went wrong.

Environmental regulations must be based on the “best avaiable science“. But science is always evolving, as new data and research emerges.

This dynamic reality forces government regulators to make judgements about where to draw the line, and when to go with the science you have as “best available science”.

This moving scientific target problem is made far more difficult when the “best available science” judgments involve computer models, complex environmental systems, and imprecise spatial (landscape) data – and used to support regulations with huge economic impacts.

Those situations require a careful, deliberate quality assurance process of “ground truthing” the maps and validating the models upon which they maps are based.

That’s why FEMA has an 18 month to 2 years process for finalizing “draft” ABFE maps –

But Gov. Christie and his DEP Commissioner, lacking any understanding of the science or mapping issues, short circuited this process of refining the FEMA maps by adopting them as final via DEP Emergency Regulation.

This move showed poor judgement and violates the FEMA process.

It even precludes the less rigorous traditional administrative public notice  and comment regulatory process, which could have served to corrrect maps flaws.

Now, because flaws are being exposed and more recent maps are emerging, FEMA opponents – many who want to Rebuild Now! and reduce costs – are using BOTH the original flaws in FEMA maps and this newer science to politically attack and take down the entire enterprise.

We’ve seen this before.

DEP Commissioner Campbell was warned multiple times by experts NOT to use DEP GIS based maps for regulatory purposes before he rolled out his “Big Map” fiasco.

But Campbell was trying to develop a GIS map based framework that strengthened DEP regulations and discouraged developent in environmentally sensitive or hazardous locations.

We can’t same the same thing about the Christie/Martin motivations and objectives, which were to reduce “regulatory uncertainty” and accelerate rebuilding in exactly those locations and promote his own political interests.

This is the result of the Governor’s ideological opposition to regulation and his deep misunderstanding of how the economy works – Republicans always blame lack of private investment on “regulatory uncertainty” and therefore move to remove “regulatory barriers” and “job killing red tape”.

We’ll keep you posted. See you tomorrow night in Long Brancch.