By Stephen Appezzato
Federal officials say towns around the Two River area will share in a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) grant to advance dormant coastal resiliency projects in the region.
Members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation announced this week that the state will receive $72.5 million in federal funds to support climate change preparedness efforts overseen by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
According to U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6), long-unfunded projects in Middletown, Highlands, Sea Bright, Monmouth Beach, Little Silver, Fair Haven, Red Bank and Oceanport can now advance.
“Everybody in our area knows that the storms are getting worse. Sandy was probably the worst of all, but we’ve had other incidents (and) some places have flooding just on a regular basis,” Pallone said in an interview with The Two River Times.
“You can just see the erosion that’s taking place and accelerated along our coasts and our bays,” he said. Addressing these issues is “particularly important to us,” Pallone added.
Latent projects in the Two River area fall under the DEP’s NJ FRAMES program, which was a study undertaken a few years ago to inform local governments of projected flood and sea level rise risks and strategies to mitigate them.
According to Pallone’s office, the NOAA investment will allow local towns to proceed with the flood resiliency planning they started under NJ FRAMES but have been unable to continue due to lack of funding. The study emphasizes the use of “living shorelines” strategies, which consist of developing “green” infrastructure and other natural methods to reduce future flood risk.
It’s “a way of complementing the hard structures that we do,” like flood walls, damns and flood gates, Pallone said. “I always felt all along that we should also try to use natural means, hence living shorelines, to try to complement that.”
The most well-known example of such projects is dune and beach grass replenishment along the oceanfront, which is frequently conducted by Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach.
But “it goes way beyond that,” Pallone said. Some coastal towns in New Jersey might construct oyster reefs along shorelines to slow down storm surges, install plantings along city streets and utilize rain gardens and permeable pavement to mitigate flood water.
The federal funding will also be used to restore wetlands and improve public access to waterways, in addition to education and workforce training.
The NJ FRAMES study was designed as a guide to inform coastal towns of risks associated with projected flood and sea level rise, evaluating different risks associated with higher water levels over the next decades.
It’s a “resiliency program that’s naturally based,” Pallone said.
According to the congressman, some believe New Jersey faces more negative impacts from climate change than any other state, due to higher storm frequency, sea level rise and “because so many people in our state live near the coast, with it being the most densely populated state.”
The NOAA funding secured to advance these projects was a chunk of $575 million set aside in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for climate resiliency efforts around the country, allocated in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Projects guided by NJ FRAMES will complement other ongoing coastal resiliency efforts in the area, like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Sea Bright to Manasquan beach erosion control project, which replenishes the shoreline every few years. In November, Highlands residents will vote on a nonbinding ballot question regarding a proposal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct flood walls along the town’s shoreline.
The article originally appeared in the August 1 – 7, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
