NJ Shoreline Protection and Vulnerability
SHORE PROTECTION IN THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY:
New Jersey is considered the most developed and densely populated shoreline in the
country, but out of a 130-mile distance between Sandy Hook and Cape May Point, there
are 31.2 miles of shoreline with no human development between the salt marshes and
the sea. The Sandy Hook National Seashore was established on the northern spit in
Monmouth County, long used for military defense of New York harbor. Continuous development
extends from Sea Bright south to Seaside Park in Ocean County. The 10.5-mile Island
Beach State Park provides a nearly pristine coastal environment utilized in ever increasing
recreational and eco-tourist activities. Long Beach Island has the Holgate unit of
the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge at its southern tip as part of a 10.8-mile gap
in development consisting of Holgate, Little Beach Island and the northern part of
Brigantine Island. Shorter segments of undeveloped shoreline exist on Pecks Beach
(Corson鈥檚 Inlet State Park), the Two-Mile Beach Unit; Cape May National Wildlife Refuge,
and the Cape May Meadows in Cape May County. Seventy six percent of the coast is developed,
with intensely crowded public and private land use activities of great economic value
to the State and its citizens.
Shore protection is the science and strategy of devising methods, structures, and
practices that together, promote the art of living safely within a geologically unstable
environment with the constant threat of storm damage. Made of unconsolidated sediments,
the New Jersey coastal zone is not able to resist alteration by waves, tides and storms
that move sediment from place to place. The total absence of bedrock along the shoreline
means that all the oceanfront is vulnerable to be removed and re-deposited elsewhere
over relatively short periods of time.
Protection has involved many different structural solutions beginning with timber
bulkheads and piles of brush contained inside a double row of cedar pilings (early
groins). During the 20th Century truck transportation of large rocks added to the
ability of placing large armor stone along erosional shorelines. Concrete came into
play to create seawalls and other structural solutions. Finally, the development of
large-scale methodology for moving millions of cubic yards of sand from areas of surplus
at inlets or offshore to eroded beaches created the beach replenishment 鈥渋ndustry鈥.
Between 1990 and 2005 over a half billion Federal, State and local dollars were expended
at over 50% of the developed shoreline placing 10鈥檚 of millions of cubic yards of
sand on beaches between Sandy Hook and Cape May Point.
36 years of State regulation of the coastal zone has produced a large volume of policy
designed to guide a safer development history especially along the inlet and oceanfront
shorelines. Implemented by the Land Use Regulation Program (LURP) within the New Jersey
Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), the shore protection aspect of the
regulation has focused on building design, setbacks from the shoreline and the creation
of a wider beach with a storm resistant dune system built between the development
and the beach. There has been abundant conflict between those who would build right
to the high tide line on the beach and some who would advocate the abandonment of
all public and private development on barrier islands. Since most individuals, corporations,
and municipal governments fall close to the center between that range of positions,
the major battle has been over how large a setback, how wide a beach and controlling
dune growth.
As the Federal/State and local municipal beach restoration program emerged in the
late 1980鈥檚, the wider beaches created by bringing in new sand have reduced storm
damage to public and private property. The first reaches completed under the Federal
program were northern Ocean City to 34th Street and Cape May City, NJ. Ocean City
was completed in the summer of 1992 following the October 31, 1991 northeast storm
which did over $4,000,000 in damage just to the municipal boardwalk and other public
infrastructure along the shoreline. In December 1992 an equally intense event produced
another Federal disaster declaration for New Jersey, but damage to the Ocean City
oceanfront infrastructure was negligible. In Cape May City there was one minor area
of overwash into the community at the very northern oceanfront street intersection.
Following the two early 1990鈥檚 northeast storms, the State Division of Engineering
and Construction reviewed the damage history and looked for ways to accelerate the
Federal Shore Protection Program for other New Jersey beaches. In 1994 the NJ legislature
established the 鈥淪hore Protection Stable Funding Act鈥 that initially provided $15
million dollars annually for the specific purpose of conducting shore protection projects
along the coastline. The policy was to provide 75% of the project cost with the State
funds, with the local contribution equal to 25% of the project. Following consultation
with the New Jersey Shore Partnership, local coastal public officials, coastal consultants,
public and private, the decision was made to use the Stable Funding Act revenue to
provide the required 35% local partner(s) matching funds to seek future Federal assistance.
With the Federal Government payi