Oceanfront owners ask judge to block Jersey shore dunes

Rock wall designed to protect oceanfront in Bay Head, NJ 
Wayne Parry reports for The Associated Press:

A group of oceanfront homeowners in New Jersey is saying thanks, but no thanks, to the government and its money.

The residents on Monday asked a state judge to exempt them from a protective sand dune project, arguing that the millions they’ve spent from their own pockets on a rock wall — and the millions more they will spend on its upkeep — will do the job better than what the government proposes.

The homeowners have been pushing back for nearly three years against Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s plan to erect protective sand dunes along most of New Jersey’s 127-mile coast. Among them is Lawrence Bathgate II, who was the national Republican finance chairman under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and raised money for both of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns and Jeb Bush’s 2016 primary campaign.

More than a dozen residents from Bay Head and neighboring areas asked Superior Court Judge Marlene Lynch Ford to block the state from seizing strips of their land for the project. She is the same judge who last year upheld the state’s right to seize land from resistant homeowners for the dune project, but agreed to consider what might be special circumstances in Bay Head, where parts of the shoreline have been protected by a man-made rock wall since the 1800s.



The homeowners have spent $5 million on the wall between their homes and the ocean, and say the government’s proposed project is wasteful and unneeded in their area. Their homes lie in an area that was devastated by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.


“This is a system that has not cost the government a penny, and it is a system that has worked,” said Anthony Della Pelle, an attorney for the homeowners. “The only people who it would protect are the people in this courtroom today — and they don’t want it. That is the biggest irony of all.”


The residents want to be excluded from the $128 million, 14-mile project, nearly two miles of which would be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in front of the existing rock wall.


Stephen Eisdorfer, an attorney for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said the dunes need to be “continuous, uniform and gapless” in order to work properly. 


The state has an interest not only in protecting lives and property, but in maintaining wide beaches for public use that “are part of what makes New Jersey New Jersey.”


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8 cool things you should know about NJ beach rebuilding

Daniel Nee of Brick Shorebeat provide information about the upcoming beach replenishment program in NJ:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project is expected to begin within the next two months. It will change our local beaches forever, with vegetated dunes and engineered beaches that will be better protected during storms.

But what about the details? Before the $90 million project begins, we thought we’d fill you in on a few facts, courtesy of the Corps itself.

1. The project will send millions of cubic yards of sand through pipes, miles out in the ocean, right onto your street’s beach! The project, once fully completed, will cover approximately 14 miles of coastline along the Barnegat Peninsula in the communities of Point Pleasant Beach, Bay Head, Mantoloking, Brick Township, Toms River Township, Lavallette, Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, and Berkeley Township.

More than 11 million cubic yards of sand will be dredged from approved borrow areas and pumped through a series of pipes onto the beaches of the municipalities. Last summer, we took a tour of one of the dredge boats working the Long Beach Island project to get an up-close view as to how things work.

The dredge boat Liberty Island, off Long Beach Island, NJ. (Photo: Daniel Nee)


2. Where is the sand coming from? Will it match the color and grain size of the existing sand? The sand will be coming from several offshore “borrow areas.” The identified borrow areas are chosen for their compatibility of the sand with the existing sand on the beaches. The Army Corps goes through an extensive process (they also work with the state Department if Environmental Protection) to find these sites and gain the environmental approvals to use them.

The process includes physical sampling as the Corps seeks to closely match the grain size to the “native” sand on the beach. Sometimes, the sand pumped onto the beach may initially appear to be a darker color as it has been buried unexposed to sunlight. Once exposed to the elements, this disappears quickly and the material will match the existing sand. In a previous project on Long Beach Island, the sand began to appear white (like the sand that was there before it) after about a week or so. 

3. Yes, the sand is designed to erode after construction. Because the Corps cannot reliably place material under water in the surf zone, officials know that the profile will undergo an initial adjustment to reach the natural equilibrium profile of the beach.

“We expect Mother Nature to erode some of the berm in the first year, which is why we build a post-construction template much wider than the designed template,” the Corps states in a fact sheet on the project. In addition, the project includes scheduled regular “periodic nourishment” every 4 years to add more sand into the system to maintain the design profile over the life of the project.

4. Dune crossovers will replace cut-throughs to access the beach. The Corps’ contract includes the construction of “dune crossovers,” which are built over top of the dune as opposed to “through the dune.” This way, the entire coastline is protected and there is no place where water can funnel its way through during a storm. These are typically built in the same locations as existing access points.

Additionally, the Corps is building ADA-accessible dune crossovers and vehicular dune crossovers in certain locations based on coordination with the non-federal sponsor (NJDEP) and the local municipalities. The pedestrian crossovers are topped with a hard-pack clay-like material, which is easier to walk on. The crossovers include fencing to assist with keeping people from walking on the dunes, which damages the stabilizing dune grass.

A dune crossover on a vehicle access beach in Surf City, N.J. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

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Republicans in Congress hurry to slash oil and gas rules

Eric Lipton reports for The New York Times:

The document carried the title “A Roadmap to Repeal,” a concise list of Obama administration environmental regulations that a Koch brothers-backed group was pressing President Trump and Congress to quickly reverse after Inauguration Day.

It was a tally of rules that energy industry executives and lobbyists had waged a futile fight against for eight years, donating millions of dollars to lawmakers who vowed to help block them, filing lawsuits to try to overturn them and hiring experts to generate reports that questioned the need for them.

But in a flurry of activity this past week, Congress did what Charles G. and David H. Koch — who own a conglomerate that sells hundreds of products, including gasoline, jet fuel and coal — and other industry leaders had been asking for.

Using a rarely invoked law, the Republican-controlled Congress nullified a measure intended to curb the venting of gas wells on federal lands, and began the process of rolling back other regulations, including one enacted to limit damage that coal mines cause to streams — each items on the “Roadmap to Repeal.”

On Friday, with his own executive orders, Mr. Trump took up two more items on the list, including a call to rewrite major provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, legislation crafted by the Obama administration and passed by Congress in response to the 2008 financial meltdown.

Not since the Reagan administration has Washington moved so quickly to roll back or nullify so many federal regulations, one of the clearest signs of an abrupt shift of power in a government now under one-party control that has flipped the script of winners and losers.

“It is a big, fat victory, after all this time,” said Luke Popovich, a vice president at the National Mining Association, an industry trade group.

A three-way alliance has now been formed among Congress, the Trump administration and industries that struggled to reverse what they saw as an out-of-control rush to regulate by the Obama administration.

This new alignment of power is causing alarm among not only environmental groups but also other — mostly liberal — advocates who have spent much of the past eight years pushing for new rules to cover Wall Street banks, broadband providers, teacher preparation requirements, prepaid credit cards and even companies that sell high-calorie foods in vending machines.

All of these measures, and many others, now stand a chance of being reversed, watered down or blocked.

“For the last several years, whenever Congress would concoct some way to roll back a rule protecting clean air or clean water or undermine the fight against climate change, we always felt confident as we had an adult in charge at the White House,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, an environmental group. “Now, what used to be a wish list of the oil and coal and gas industry has become the to-do list for Congress and the White House.”


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Not since the Reagan administration has Washington moved so quickly to roll back or nullify so many federal regulations, one of the clearest signs of an abrupt shift of power in a government now under one-party control that has flipped the script of winners and losers.
“It is a big, fat victory, after all this time,” said Luke Popovich, a vice president at the National Mining Association, an industry trade group.

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NJ lawmakers fail to advance water testing legislation

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
The state’s failure to establish drinking-water standards for a range of toxic contaminants, some recommended a dozen years ago, came under harsh scrutiny and criticism from legislators yesterday.
Nevertheless, the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee held a bill to require the Department of Environmental Protection to adopt new standards for 16 substances, largely on the urging of a top agency executive.
The outcome disappointed environmentalists who have been lobbying for action on the contaminants for years. They had hoped to press the Legislature to force the DEP to act, especially in the wake of reports of lead in drinking water in schools and hospitals, chromium in more than 100 water systems, and other toxics in supplies in South Jersey.
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Like eating out? Better think twice about immigration bans

In his 12-plus years as a chef, Hungry Pigeon co-owner Scott Schroeder has done dozens of collaboration dinners. He can’t think of one that came together as quickly as this.
On March 2, Schroeder’s Queen Village restaurant will host an event called “Sit Down and Eat to Stand Up for Change.”
Billed as a fundraiser to “stand in solidarity for civil rights,” from which all proceeds will be donated to the ACLU, the Hungry Pigeon dinner features food made by chefs at nine different restaurants and drinks donated by seven breweries, spirits makers and wine distributors. With all the moving parts, the whole thing took less than a week to organize.
“Everyone we asked was eager to participate and donate things,” Schroeder told Billy Penn. “It was effortless.”
In a way few other circumstances have, Donald Trump’s maneuvers in the first few weeks of his presidency have spurred the Philly hospitality industry to action.
Combined with his order stripping “Sanctuary Cities” like Philadelphia of federal funding if they don’t work with immigration officials on deportation, Trump’s order restricting travel from seven countries and revoking tens of thousands of visas was especially galvanizing.
“I love a good Facebook argument as much as the next person, but it doesn’t really do much,” said Schroeder, explaining how he and Cheu Noodle Bar co-owner Ben Puchowitz came up with the idea for the event. “We wanted to do something that actually helped.”
Tickets to the dinner run $100 per person and include all food and drink.

‘Sanctuary Supper’

For Philadelphians distraught by the Administration’s policies, going out for a nice meal can be a welcome distraction. But for chefs, restaurateurs and others in the business, it’s work — work that depends heavily on immigrant labor.
“Like many restaurants in the US, Le Virtù operates on a daily basis thanks to the dedication and hard work of immigrants,” said co-owner Francis Cratil Cretarola.
The entire kitchen staff currently working under chef Joe Cicala at the East Passyunk destination is comprised of people from Mexico, he noted, and the restaurant has also relied on employees born in Nicaragua, Canada and Italy.
So Le Virtù has also put together a fundraising dinner.
View image on Twitter

View image on Twitter

Le Virtù @LeVirtuPhila
Alfonso Cretarola with co-owner Francis Cratil Cretarola: the undocumented immigrant who inspired @LeVirtuPhila 
11:49 AM – 29 Jan 2017 · Philadelphia, PA
Slated to take place on March 15, the “Sanctuary Supper” will feature dishes from both Cicala and Mexico-born sous chef Poli Sanchez. Seats run $120 per person, including wine, and funds will be donated to PAUWR (Popular Alliance for Undocumented Workers’ Rights), the organization founded by Ben Miller and Cristina Martinez.
Miller and Martinez, owners of renowned taqueria South Philly Barbacoa, have emerged as spokespeople for the rights of immigrant restaurant workers — especially those who, like Martinez, are undocumented. In the coming year, they plan to take their #right2work dinner series national.
Across the US, “eating and drinking places” employ approximately 1.8 million foreign-born people, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number ends up meaning at least 20 percent of a restaurant’s staff is made up of immigrants, on average. In big cities like Philadelphia that number swells to something like 70 percent, according to national nonprofit Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC). Of those, at least one in 10 is estimated to be undocumented.
“The restaurant industry is one of the largest employers of immigrants in the nation,” said Sheila Maddali, co-director of ROC’s Pennsylvania branch and co-director of ROC’s national Tipped Worker Resource Center.
She described her organization as “an alternative to the National Restaurants Association” trade group, leaders of which recently said they were “looking forward to working with” President Trump on E-Verify.
“There’s no way to talk about the industry without talking about immigrants — of both documented and undocumented status,” Maddali said.
Based in West Philly, Maddali has recently taken on an additional role at ROC: She’s the national spokesperson for the new Sanctuary Restaurants project.
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If the money’s there, why no action on NJ transit projects?

Not a single step can be taken on vitally needed new transportation projects in New Jersey until a new committee meets to select which projects get funded. 


The catch? The committee doesn’t yet exist.


That’s right. Despite months of delay, as the governor and legislature wrangled over a funding source–finally settling on an increase in the state’s gas-tax–no one apparently bothered to come up with names of folks to sit on the panel and choose what projects will get the green light.


And when the committee’s members finally are appointed, expect the political horse-trading to begin in earnest. 

David Cruz has the story above for NJTV News
 

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