Chamber has Zoom presentation on rules for land resource protection
By JACK FICHTER /Sentine staff
The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is proposing new regulations to address climate change that anticipates sea level rise by as much as 5 feet by the year 2100.
The Cape May County Chamber of Commerce presented a Zoom program covering potential amendments to land resource protection rules by the DEP to address climate change.
Vince Mazzei, assistant commissioner for watershed and land management, who oversees the DEP’s new divisions of Land Resource Protection and Watershed Protection and Restoration, presented the program to an online audience Jan. 25.
He has a leading role in New Jersey PACT (Protecting Against Climate Threats), a targeted regulatory reform initiative aimed at modernizing many of the state’s environmental regulations to protect against climate threats.
“We want people to be safe. We want economic growth to be responsible and to not be inhibited where it shouldn’t be, and this is a difficult challenge that we’re facing,” he said. “We have science that suggests some pretty scary things on our horizon and how best do we adapt our regulations to that?”
The decisions we make today will affect our grandchildren, Mazzei said, adding that the state did not want to adopt rules that were onerous or missed the mark or are not protective enough.
Mazzei said the DEP’s aim in the next few years is to try take its rules and turn them toward a holistic approach. He said long-term economic loss would occur from climate change if the DEP does not plan correctly today.
In elevating a house, the higher you go, the lower your flood insurance goes, Mazzei said.
“For every foot up you go, of course adds a certain amount of cost to the building but you make that money up in savings of flood insurance within about six years on average,” he said. “So, for the lifetime of the structure you have lower flood insurance rates and it’s more resilient.”
About one third of New Jersey lies in a flood hazard area and the state ranks third in the nation in National Flood Insurance Program claims.
“We want to ensure that the homes and the bridges and the roads and the buildings and the businesses that will be here 50, 75, 100 years from now are safe as they can be based on the science that we have,” Mazzei said.
He said the state wanted to encourage development and redevelopment that’s safe, sustainable and resilient, and wherever possible reduces risks from and contribution to climate change.
“We want to facilitate the creation and restoration of natural systems that will assist in the mitigation of climate threats” Mazzei said.
The state must tackle inundation and flood damage, he said. An area known as the Inundation Risk Zone can be established to account for land expected to be inundated by sea level rise in the future.
As sea levels rise, the tidal flood elevation will also rise.
“If sea level goes up 2 or 3 feet, then we can expect at least 2 or 3 feet in the rise of the flood elevation,” Mazzei said.
A Rutgers University study displays different dates and carbon emission levels for the years 2070, 2100 and 2150 and a choice of changes in sea level. The DEP is planning for climate change conditions in 2100.
Mazzei said they estimated there is a 50 percent chance that sea level rise will be at least 3.3 feet by 2100 but there was also a 50 percent chance sea level rise could exceed 3.3 feet by that year.
“The number we have been focusing on for the purposes of our rulemaking has been 5 feet, and that’s a 17 percent chance of exceedance,” he said.
In the future, the DEP would have standards for four zones: the area that is under water today, land that would be inundated either twice daily because of high tides or permanently, existing floodplain limits and the future floodplain limits, Mazzei said.
He said he knew it was impossible to raise every coastal road in the state by 5 feet. Mazzei said raising an intersection by 6 inches or one foot might make a big difference for nuisance flooding and extend the life of the intersection before sea level rise subsumes it.
If sea level is going to rise by 5 feet, then it must be assumed floodplains would rise by at least 5 feet, he said. Someone building a home in the AE zone at an elevation of 7 feet may need to elevate their house to 12 feet, Mazzei said.
Precipitation could increase by as much as 35 percent by 2100, so today’s 500-year flood may be tomorrow’s 100- year flood on Federal Emergency Management Agency maps, he said.
In the future, applicants to the DEP for projects may be asked to contemplate the impacts of climate change on the viability of their project.
“Based on the size of the project, the number of people that are going to rely on it and the potential loss that could happen both economically and to society if that structure is inaccessible or lost is important,” Mazzei said.
He said the DEP will provide incentives for nature-based solutions.
“Shorelines that are protected using vegetation in concert with other things like rock and wood tend to last longer and be more resilient than bulkheaded areas,” Mazzei said.
The DEP wants to promote renewable energy but do so in a way that is environmentally responsible, he said. While offshore wind projects would be located miles off the coast, the power transmission lines must come to the mainland, which may mean placing large cables through shellfish habitats, Mazzei said.
Current regulations do not cover such electrical transmission lines, he said.
Mazzei said the DEP is in the stage of writing new standards and is getting input from communities. New rules would be subject to a legal review that would take a few months, he said.
In late spring, the DEP will be proposing new regulations and offering a 60-day public comment period.
“It usually takes upwards of about a year from proposal to have a rule adopted,” he said.
Projects that are being contemplated today probably will not have to deal with new standards until next year, according to Mazzei.