“Coast In a Vice” & “Ghost Trees”: Retreat Is the Only Option

“Ghost Trees – evidence of sea level rise and storm surge impacts Jake’s Landing, Dennis Township, Cape May” – Source Rutgers CRSSA, Lathrop.

The Christie DEP says Barnegat Bay entering the Age of Aquarium?

“Barnegat Bay stressors are not just pollution,” said Thomas Belton, a state Department of Environmental Protection scientist, in a July interview. “They include bulkheads (that attract sea nettles), the Oyster Creek power plant, which has a big impact on the system.”

“When you shut that off, you have to think of Barnegat Bay as a giant aquarium, where the filter’s been turned off and the water has changed,” Belton said. ~~~ Asbury Park Press, 9/17/14

Ah yes:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ ~~~ Through the Looking Glass

Now let’s get back to reality.

The Christie DEP is being criticized severely in many quarters – rightly so – for a grossly irresponsible proposal that would invite even more development to NJ’s already over-developed and highly vulnerable coast, e.g. see this Star Ledger editorial:

Christie administration still wearing blinders on sea level rise

Pressure is building on the Legislature to veto that DEP rule as “inconsistent with legislative intent”, e.g. see NJ Surfrider petition

But what is being lost in this – and many other single issue environmental debates – is how the Christie administration is not only going in the wrong direction.

The Gov. and his DEP team have – in an across the board fashion – derailed scientific and policy development efforts to move in the right direction.

A prime example of that is how the Gov.’s Barnegat Bay “10 Point Management Plan” has politicized the DEP’s research agenda and how those mis-focused studies have displaced and diverted scientific research on issues like this:

At over 1/3 of the bay watershed in human altered land use, the BB-LEH system is heavily impacted by watershed inputs and adjacent land use

Next steps: Defining critical thresholds of BBW land use change in relation to the downstream impact to the Bay.

– How much impervious and lawn surface can be added before the bay reaches a critical tipping point? Are we already there?

Source: Lathrop, Rutgers CRSSA

Those were the critical scientific questions being framed by Rutgers researchers in 2010, as the Christie Administration took control of DEP.

Could you imagine the Christie DEP talking about “ghost trees” and the fact that the shore is “in a vice”? That back bay flooding is an “achilles heel”?

The last things the Christie DEP wants to talk about are climate change, limiting shore development, and the need to “retreat” and adapt to sea level rise.

So they suppress science and hijack the research agenda and shift focus to secondary issues that examine politically safe topics.

As an illustration of how they do this, it is simply amazing to contrast the focus of that 2010 Rutgers/DEP research agenda with the current Christie DEP research agenda.

All the key issues framed in 2010 are completely gone:

land use as driver of water quality, habitat, and ecological declines
loss of riparian buffers
climate change – sea level rise – coastal vulnerability
adaptation and restoration strategies – “retreat”
tipping points

All of that work was building the scientific basis to support land use planning and regulatory strategies that could mitigate the ecological collapse and human disaster underway at the coast.

All of that is now gone. Completely gone.

And the coast is not the only place where the irresponsible and incompetent Christie DEP regime has hijacked and reversed the scientific, environmental, and public health policy agendas.

Some of this damage is irreversible, while other will set back progress by a decade.

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“Coast In a Vice” & “Ghost Trees”: Retreat Is the Only Option

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