Groups say nature-based measures should be a bigger part of massive plan to protect communities

 

 

 

 

 

Environmental groups faulted some of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ latest ideas for defending New Jersey’s back bays from the devastation of sea-level rise and the bigger storms that are expected to come with climate change.

In March, the Corps proposed measures including sea walls and storm-surge barriers, as well as nature-based programs like building up coastal marshes, as ways of keeping ocean waters out of vulnerable back-bay communities.

The handily titled New Jersey Back Bays Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study Interim Report invited but did not publish reactions from stakeholders including municipalities, other government agencies, and environmental groups. New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection is cooperating in the project and sharing the cost with the Corps.

The comments, obtained from some of the groups individually, welcomed the investigation into ways of protecting the back bays from rising waters but said the plan missed the mark in some important respects.

Crucial role of coastal marshes

The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey, for example, said the proposals did not give enough weight to nature-based measures — called ‘NNBF’ — such as coastal marshes and living shorelines that play a crucial role in absorbing storm surge.

“We were disappointed that NNBF has not been fully integrated into the flood-risk management alternatives,” the conservancy wrote. “We strongly urge the USACE to more comprehensively utilize NNBF as a flood-risk management strategy along the NJ coastline.”

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It offered its own research into which coastal habitats are already helping to mitigate sea-level rise; said it was ready to identify which salt marshes in Ocean, Atlantic and Cape May counties would benefit from an increase in sediment, and proposed to share its ideas on building different kinds of living shorelines to defend different parts of the Jersey Shore.

Credit: USACE

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Flood barriers like sea walls “may provide a false sense of security” because they encourage new development and increasing population in low-lying areas, and may distract from the need to encourage people to move away from flood-prone areas, the conservancy said.

While some man-made infrastructure will likely be needed to protect the back bays, features like storm-surge barriers could hurt natural resources, and that isn’t fully recognized by the corps’ report, said Patty Doerr, director of the Conservancy’s coastal and marine program in New Jersey.

She said conservancy scientists have found that salt marshes, for example, play an important role in protecting the coast from storms, including Superstorm Sandy in 2012 when coastal marshes reduced property damage by $450 million, according to a study by the Conservancy and others.

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