Coastal Management
Coastal Storms
• Tropical cyclones (hurricanes) and
Nor’easters can devastate coastal areas
• Damage from coastal storms costs billions
of dollars a year in damages to the coasts
of the US
• The frequency of large storms in coastal
areas makes them among the most risky
places for human habitation, in spite of this
the coastal counties in the USA are the
fastest growing
Coastal Zone
• The coastal zone comprises just
seventeen percent of the contiguous US’
land area, it is home to fifty-six percent of
the country’s population.
• 3,600 people are added to the coastal
zone daily, increasing population density in
U.S. coastal areas from 187 people per
square mile in 1960, to 273 in 1994, and to
a projected 327 in 2015 (NOAA 1998).
Hard Stabilization
Longshore Drift of Sediment
• Human Interference with Sand Drift
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Jetties
Groins
Breakwater
Sea walls
Beach Nourishment
• Beach nourishment is one engineering
solution to coastal erosion
• It involves transfer of offshore sand or
sand from quarries to the coast are a cost
of millions of dollars
• Many tourist beaches in the USA are there
because of beach nourishment
Beach Nourishment
• NJDEP, USACOE, MMS
• Dredge and pump slurry
• For every foot of beach one cubic yard is
needed
• If the state needs to extend a 1000 foot
long beach 200 feet it will need 200,000
cubic yards of sand or 20,000 truckloads
Between 1995 and 2006, the Minerals Management Service provided
over 23 million cubic yards of OCS sand for 17 coastal projects. These
projects restored over 90 miles of the Nation’s coastline mainly in Florida,
Maryland and Virginia
Central Boca Raton Beach Renourishment Project
California Beach Restoration
Study January 2002
• Continue Investing in Beaches:
– Past beach nourishment experience in California has shown that
continued funding for sand is justified by the economic benefits
from tourism and beach recreation associated with wide sandy
beaches (including $4.6 billion in tax revenue for the State).
– Continue funding the Public Beach Restoration Program and
invest in opportunistic beach replenishment.
• Remove or Bypass Dams:
– Substantial increases in sand volume to local sediment budgets,
resulting in wider beaches, could be realized by removing those
dams that are nolonger serving any useful function, and
bypassing sediment around those that are functional but
impound significant volumes of sand.
• Promote Opportunistic Sand Nourishment:
– the cost and complexity of regulatory compliance often precludes
the use of opportunistic material from sources such as debris
basins and wetlands.
Long Beach Island dune construction plan. The $71 million plan —
65 percent of it financed by federal funds and 35 percent paid for by the state
— calls for dune construction that would put 11 million cubic yards of new
sand on the shore. Earth movers would cast it all to create and firm up 125foot-deep beaches, as well as dunes that are at least 22 feet above the mean
high tide point and 30 feet wide. Every five years, engineers would add more
sand, if necessary, to maintain the new shoreline.
• The 1994 activation of the United Nations Convention on
the Law of the Sea, reauthorization of the US Coastal
Zone Management Act in 1996, and designation of 1998
as the International Year of the Ocean.
• The Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 defines
the coastal zone as a transition from land to the US
territorial sea, consisting mainly of the swash zone, bays,
dunes, estuaries, intra-coastal developments and
waterways, coastal wetlands, marshes, and the like.
• The International Year of the Ocean (1998), sponsored
by the United Nations, called attention to an increasing
need for investigations into deep ocean, island, and
coastal management, all in the context of Earth System
Science. Specifically, Chapter 17 of the 1992 UN
Conference on Environment and Development’s Agenda
21 report calls for the assessment and management of
fisheries, a de facto guarantee of biodiversity protection
CZMA 1972
• The federal Coastal Zone Management
Act (CZMA) of 1972 was established to
encourage coastal states to manage
development within the states’ designated
coastal areas to reduce conflicts between
coastal development and protection of
resources within the coastal zone.
NJDEP
• NJ Department of Environmental Protection
regulates coastal zone activities under N.J.A.C.
Section 7:7E, Coastal Zone Management (CZM)
Policies. Section 7:7E sets forth substantive
rules of the NJDEP regarding the use and
Regulation Program in reviewing permit
applications under the Coastal Area Facility
Review Act (CAFRA), N.J.S.A. 13:9A-1 et seq
(as amended to July 19, 1993), Wetlands Act of
1970, N.J.S.A. 13:9A-1 et seq, Waterfront
Development Law, N.J.S.A. 12:5-3, Water
Quality Certification (401 of the Federal Clean
Water Act), and Federal Consistency
Determinations (307 of the Federal Coastal
Zone Management Act).
NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT
POLICIES
• Policy 7:7E-3.5: Finfish Migratory Pathways
– Development that obstructs fish passageways or lowers water quality to
an extent that interferes with fish movement or violates standards is
prohibited in waterways that serve as migratory pathways unless
mitigation is provided.
• Policy 7:7E-3.7: Navigation channels
– The navigability of existing navigation channels must not be impacted
by dredging or development, or by siltation as a result of said dredging
or development.
• Policy 7:7E-3.11: Ports
– Any use that will preempt or interfere with port uses (i.e., marine
terminal) is prohibited; docks and piers for cargo movement are
encouraged.
• Policy 7:7E-3.12: Submerged Infrastructure Routes
– A “submerged infrastructure route” is the corridor in which a pipe or
cable runs on or below a submerged land surface. Any activity that will
increase the likelihood of damage to a submerged pipe or cable, or
interfere with maintenance operations, is prohibited.
NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT
POLICIES
• Policy 7:7E-3.13: Shipwrecks and artificial reefs
– Acceptable uses of these submerged habitats include recreational and
commercial/finfishing and shellfishing, and scuba diving. In addition,
construction of new or expanded artificial reefs by the deposition of
weighted nontoxic material is conditionally acceptable
• Policy 7:7E-3.15: Intertidal and subtidal shallows
– Development, filling, and new dredging are generally discouraged in
intertidal and subtidal shallows, but may be permitted in accordance
with the Use Policy for the applicable water body type (in this case,
large rivers).
• Policy 7:7E-3.25: Flood hazard areas
– In an undeveloped portion of a flood hazard area that is within 100 feet
of a navigable water body, development is prohibited unless the
development is for water dependent use.
• Policy 7:7E-3.27: Wetlands
– Development in wetlands defined under the Freshwater Wetlands
Protection Act of 1987 is prohibited unless the development is found to
be acceptable under the Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act Rules
(N.J.A.C. 7:7A).
NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT
POLICIES
•
Policy 7:7E-3.34: Historic and Archaeological Resources
– Development that detracts from, encroaches upon, damages, or destroys the
value of historic and archaeological resources is discouraged, while adaptive
reuse is encouraged. Mitigation measures must take place if the proposed
development will irreversibly and/or adversely affect historic and archaeological
resources.
•
Policy 7:7E-3.38: Endangered or threatened wildlife or vegetation
species habitats
– Development in these areas or their buffers is prohibited unless it can be
demonstrated that endangered or threatened wildlife or vegetation species
habitat would not directly or through secondary impacts on the relevant site or in
the surrounding area be adversely affected.
•
Policy 7:7E-3.39: Critical wildlife habitats
– Development that would directly or through secondary impacts on the relevant
site or in the surrounding region adversely affect critical wildlife habitats is
discouraged,
•
Policy 7:7E-3.41: Special hazard areas
– Coastal development, especially residential and labor-intensive economic
development, within special hazard areas is discouraged. All development within
special hazard areas must include appropriate mitigating measures to protect the
public health and safety. NJDEP’s Division of Hazardous Waste Management
handles approvals for hazardous substance investigations or clean-up activities
at contaminated sites.
NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT
POLICIES
• Policy 7:7E-3.43: Special urban areas
– Development that will help to restore the economic
and social viability of special urban areas is
encouraged.
– Development that would adversely affect the
economic well being of these areas is discouraged
when an alternative which is more beneficial to the
special urban areas is feasible.
• Revitalization of the Greenville Yard float bridges would
encourage and restore the economic viability of the special
urban areas (Jersey City and Bayonne) that surround the
Greenville Yard. Therefore, these alternatives would be
consistent with this policy.
New Jersey Beaches
• More than any state in the nation, New Jersey has taken
a stand against the invading tides.
• It has the most engineered beaches in the country
• Today, buffering shore towns from the endless assault of
the Atlantic Ocean are 483 sand-trapping groins, 23
miles of seawalls and bulkheads, and an assortment of
wave-breakers, sandbags, Geotubes, Beachsaver Reefs
and other devices.
• It has one of the nation's highest annual shore-protection
budgets, $25 million, administered by the state's landuse agency, the Department of Environmental
Protection.
• In the last 50 years, taxpayers have paid $600 million to
protect coastal real estate.
• Taxpayers have committed $2 billion to pump sand on
New Jersey beaches for the next 50 years. That cost
could rise to $5 billion if other proposed beachfill projects
come to fruition
New Jersey Beaches
• Avalon and Stone Harbor have been anchored
in place by $3 billion worth of real estate, and
both towns are waiting for a 50-year federal
beachfill project such as the one in Ocean City
• Ocean City, it is just the latest in a long history of
fills.
• According state records and the Army Corps of
Engineers, more than 15 million cubic yards of
sand have been dumped or pumped on the city's
five miles of beaches since the 1950s. T
• hat represents close to one-third of all the sand
ever placed on the state's beaches.
• Orrin Pilkey's classic book The Corps and
the Shore, written with Katharine Dixon,
details how jetties, seawalls, groins and
other desperate maneuvers offer only
temporary respite from the natural effects
of erosion and shifting coastline--and
ultimately make things worse.
• The same thing is true of imported sand.
New Jersey beaches, the authors write,
can expect only a one- to three-year
lifespan, and there is damage to water
clarity and bottom-dwellers.
Answers?
• There are no easy answers on the Jersey shore.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, property
that was worth $8.7 billion in 1962 is now worth
$34.3 billion when adjusted for inflation. In 1945,
George Lippincott bought a house with 1.2 acres
in coastal Avalon for $500, raising the money by
selling a single rare stamp.
• This year, Lippincott's descendants put the
property on the market for $3.5 million. The
coast is now fully developed, with the result that
a "100-year storm" would be far more
devastating today than it would have been 50
years ago. Taxpayers will foot much of the bill for
any rebuilding, since flood insurance is federally
guaranteed