Not Too Bright In Sea Bright NJ – Christie Attempt to Hold Back The Sea A Costly Exercise in Futility

Sea Bright, NJ

“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.” […] Duke University emeritus Professor Pilkey, quoted in “Hurricane Sandy: Rebuilding Is Madness”

Many areas also suffered devastating flooding with recorded stages in the tidal rivers as high as +13ft NAVD88. In the downtown portion of Sea Bright alone there are over 150 structures (125 residential and 25 non-residential) with elevations of +5 ft NA VD88 or below that were subject to flood depths of 8 ft or more from the Shrewsbury River. Low lying areas along the Shark River and Manasquan River were also subject to extensive flooding through the inlets.  […]

It is important to note all of the projects addressed in this section are located on barrier islands except for one, Ocean Gate, NJ, which is on the mainland bay shoreline in Barnegat Bay. The barrier island projects were also subject to flooding from the unprotected back side of the island. None of these projects were designed to reduce back-bay flooding.    US Army Corps of Engineers – Sandy Damage Assessment

The Army Corps of Engineers reports that Sea Bright suffered major flooding to low lying structures from tidal rivers and back bays and that sea walls are not designed to protect back bay areas on barrier islands.

What does the Christie administration do with that analysis?

Gov. Christie announced construction of another sea wall, this time along a 1,000 foot stretch of highly vulnerable beach in Sea Bright, (see DEP press release).

Historically, the existing sea wall routinely has suffered damage from coastal storms and it was severely damaged, overtopped, and breached by Superstorm Sandy.

You can read the local boosterism that politically persuaded the Christie Administration to build the project here – notably absent from that local boosterism is any recognition of the reality of climate change or sea level rise vulnerabilities.

That’s why it is boosterism and not planning.

Real planning is based on science and data, not political theater and economic development interests.

I could cite dozens, but here’s just one example – here is Gov. Christie on the question of future storms: (Star Ledger, 8/29/14)

“What we’re doing here is something that’s planning for incidents like Sandy, although I suspect we’ll never see anything quite like that again,” the governor added.

Here’s how a Rutgers planning study that looks at Sea Bright: Adapting to Climate Change in Coastal Monmouth County (2012)

• Due to climate change, there is an increasing probability of recurring storm events in the future. 
• Sea Bright’s barrier island geography presents significant development limitations
• Sea Bright is subject to frequent flooding (especially during spring high tide)

At a cost of $8.5 million of State funds, the project is a huge waste of taxpayer money.

As another example of denial of climate change and an accommodation to local boosterism, politics, and economic development, it is an abdication of governing and rational public policy.

We’ve previously written about why sea walls don’t work and how they displace and make coastal erosion and flooding problem worse in other places, see:

• Memo to Gov. Christie: Sea Walls and Engineering Don’t Work
• Christie’ Sea Wall Follies
• If Gov. Christie Had A Sense of Humor, Humility, or History

We’ve quoted Rutgers scientists and flood management experts regarding why sea walls fail to prevent back bay flooding, a problem they call NJ Shore’s “achilles heel”.

We’ve illustrated other states’ coastal management programs that discourage sea wall construction.

Sea Bright is particularly vulnerable to back bay and river flooding, as the Google maps photo above reveals.

I was unable to find an online document of the design of the proposed sea bright sea wall, but I can almost guarantee that the design basis is the 100 year storm and that it does NOT consider climate change and sea level rise. Accordingly, the project is under designed and surely will be over-topped by storm surge waves, damaged, or breached by future storms.

Engineered structures are designed based upon an event, e.g. the 100 year or 500 year storm. But scientists have observed that historical storm frequency and intensity statistics are no longer valid as a result of climate change, which will increase the severity and the track (or wind and wave/surge patterns) of coastal storms and the storm surge elevations and locations.

Climate change is also driving sea level rise, which has a significant impact of storm surge elevations and intensity.

A US Army Corps of Engineers performance evaluation found:

Hurricane Sandy was an extraordinary storm, particularly in the coastal areas extending from Cape May, NJ to Montauk Point, NY. Peak water levels indicate that Hurricane Sandy was at least greater than a 200 year event (1 in 200 annual exceedance probability), greatly exceeding project design levels. 

[Actually, at the Sea Bright location, Table 8 shows that Sandy 16.5 foot elevation was a “>500 year” storm.]

Even USACE recognizes that sea walls merely “reduce damage“, they do not prevent it and that sea walls do nothing to even reduce back bay flooding:

In many locations, heavily developed areas on the bayside of many projects (and non- project areas) were subject to back-bay flooding and wide-spread inundation damage. Projects in these areas were not authorized or formulated to comprehensively manage flood risks from the back-bay. These bayside areas remain vulnerable to future flooding and sea level rise. 

Let’s repeat that: “bayside areas remain vulnerable to future flooding and sea level rise.”

The USACE concludes that a broader strategy is required:

Delivery of more comprehensive protection to affected coastal areas requires a broader approach to the investigation and planning of flood and coastal storm damage reduction projects that includes consideration of potential flooding of back-bay reaches of barrier islands among other concerns. Provision of increased levels of flood risk reduction may increase the cost of projects, so evaluation of such projects will be based on economic benefits, as well as other factors such as reduced risk of mortality and capacity for a resilient recovery.

More see walls do not make the NJ shore more resilient.

They just create a false sense of security and lock taxpayers into a costly losing game of pumping sand on the beach and repairing storm damage.