Town official says planned measures changed little despite Sandy’s devastation
By JON HURDLE, NJ Spotlight
Twenty-seven years after state and federal officials started planning coastal flood defenses for Union Beach, a contract was signed this week to build a berm and other flood-control measures in the devastated Monmouth County town.
Although the project was finally funded after Superstorm Sandy famously pummeled the borough in October 2012, the measures that are due to begin this fall are little different from what was planned in 1995 when the process began, said Robert Howard, administrator for the town of some 5,600 people on the shore of Raritan Bay. He said the project was first approved in 2007 but didn’t attract federal funding until 2013 in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.
Howard said it was “hypothetical” whether the town would have fared better during Sandy if the new measures had been in place then, but he hoped it would have been completed. “I believe the project would have assisted with dealing with Sandy,” he said in an interview.
The new contract, worth $50 million, was announced Wednesday by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Pallone said the project will help to protect the town’s homes and businesses from the bigger and more frequent storms resulting from climate change and rising seas.
“Coastal states like New Jersey are on the frontlines of rising sea levels and stronger storms due to climate change,” Pallone said in a statement. “With this funding, the Army Corps will replenish beaches with a dune, build pedestrian crossovers and repair existing decking that will help protect residents from future storm damage and flooding events.”
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