By Philip Sean Curran
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6) is advocating for legislation that would create a new grant program to help coastal communities use natural means like dunes, vegetation or oyster reefs to combat erosion and sea-level rise.
At a visit to Keyport’s waterfront Aug. 22, Pallone stood with local officials and environmental advocates who back the Living Shorelines Act he introduced in the House in June. Such projects are seen as good for the environment, cheaper to carry out and without the steel or concrete of a traditional Army Corps of Engineers project, Pallone said.
The legislation would set aside $50 million in federal grants through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to assist states, local governments and nongovernmental organizations applying for help to pay for living shoreline projects. The funds would be matched by the recipients, Pallone’s office said.
A companion bill has been introduced in the Senate and Pallone said he thinks the measure can be passed with bipartisan support.
On a sun-splashed late morning with the Raritan Bay at his back, Pallone said his bill seeks “to come up with ways of dealing with the impact of climate change, whether it’s sea-level rise or it’s erosion, in a more natural way.” He pointed to Keyport, a bayshore community of Monmouth County, as a “perfect example” of what his legislation is seeking to promote.
Keyport Mayor Collette J. Kennedy shared how her community had a problem with sand encroaching on a softball field at Cedar Street Park, near the waterfront. Members of the community put their heads and hands together on a restoration project that involved planting dune grass and a fence.
“This right here is proof of what living shorelines will do for a municipality,” she said. “This allows us to keep some of the natural wildlife. I think it’s also one of the reasons that the osprey have come back in full force and built nests here this summer, because they feel protected here.”
The borough, she said, did not continue a prome- nade along the waterfront, “to keep some of the natural habitat here.”
“Living shorelines using nature and nature-based approaches, such as restored oyster reefs, replanted salt marshes, sand dunes and maritime forest and reinvigorated shoreline edges hold the answer to the challenges of climate adaptation and controlled coastal erosion,” said Hillary Critelli, director of development, membership and outreach at the American Littoral Society.
Yet they come with a cost. Bill Shadel, the coastal projects manager for the New Jersey chapter of the Nature Conservancy, said “the biggest limiting factor in advancing living shorelines is a lack of funding.”
But the Pallone bill, he said, would provide the necessary funds “to significantly accelerate the use of living shorelines here in New Jersey and in other coastal states.”
“It’s very hard, a lot of times, for the towns to do these things on their own, because you don’t have the money,” said Pallone, a former Long Branch councilman. “And so the whole idea here is to give grants to the towns to do these things rather than have them pay it out of the local budget.”
He said the priority for funding would go to communities that have been impacted by federal disaster declaration or have a history of flooding. That would help coastal Jersey towns hit by Super Storm Sandy in October 2012.
“So the attention has to be in the areas that are hardest hit,” he said.
Pallone, a 30-year member of Congress and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, spoke of the concerns of climate change.
Yet as an issue, climate change ranks low in the concerns of Americans, according to opinion polls. A Gallup poll in July found 4 percent of Americans considered climate change, the environment or pollution the top issue facing the country, well behind immigration, which was the top issue at 27 percent.
Pallone said most people would support steps to protect the environment or take action on climate change.
“But if you ask them if it’s a priority, they say ‘no,’ ” he said. “That’s part of the reason why we have difficulty getting Congress or the state Legislature or anybody to move on environmental issues.”
He said he thought there was “more and more concern” about climate change “and more and more people think that we have to take action.”
In part, he urged against talking about the environment in apocalyptic terms, but rather in facts, like about the impacts on human health by toxic waste sites.
