By Steven Rodas | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
The forecasted rise of sea levels throughout New Jersey keeps putting residents in difficult positions.
It’s already meant potentially coughing up millions in tax dollars to build a massive concrete wall in Highlands, adding structure elevations to building blueprints at the Jersey Shore and handing over the keys to environmental regulators statewide to move to non-flood zones.
There’s another factor that merits much consideration, according to researchers at Drexel University.
The combined sewer system.
And how not just rising ocean levels but more intense rainfall will make managing more water so much harder.
This older method of dealing with combined sewage — wherein rain and what you flush down your toilet at home end up in the same treatment plant — can mean that during storms or noteworthy downpours, this wastewater can back up in to homes and onto the streets.
Climate change causing the seas to rise — affecting water levels at the Delaware River and fueling frequent harsh rainstorms — will translate to more water which complicates the matter.
For Camden, the latest projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which also consider notable greenhouse gas emission levels, show parts of the city likely being inundated by roughly 2.5 and 3.5 feet of increased ocean levels by 2100. Some Rutgers University projections point to as much as 5 feet of sea level rise by the end of the century if measures aren’t taken to cull the amount of harmful gases.
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