NORTH WILDWOOD – Back-to-back winter storms last week caused further damage to this shore town’s beaches, already the most eroded in the state, Mayor Patrick Rosenello said.
After wind-enhanced waves battered the shoreline on Tuesday, Jan. 9, city officials determined it was time to ask the state Department of Environmental Protection once again for something the agency previously denied – a bulkhead between 12th and 15th avenues. On Friday, Jan. 12, another storm dealt a second blow to the fragile remnants of the once healthy natural dune system.
Standing near 13th Avenue among some of the few remaining dunes and freshwater wetlands the following morning, Rosenello took out his cellphone and videoed as waves breached the crest of the dune, washing away the protective sand and pouring into a flat area of vegetation just feet from John F. Kennedy Beach Boulevard.
The video, which the mayor texted to the Herald, illustrated what he sees as an immediate, if not overdue, need for a hard structure in that area to enhance shore protection.
Rosenello panned the camera. To the north, there was nothing between the ocean and the street but bulkhead, which the city installed without the DEP’s permission, and which now bears the brunt of the ocean’s force. Waves crashed repeatedly into the steel structure, and a different video from the night before showed them washing over the top of the bulkhead and into the street.
The camera continued to pan and, to the west, there was the street and, across the asphalt, nearby buildings, like motels, condos and homes that long advertised an ocean view but now were getting a little too close to it for comfort.
To the south was the beach patrol headquarters, buffered by a bulkhead put in this fall, which Rosenello said saved the building.
It’s been a year since the city attempted to install a bulkhead running from 12th Avenue to 16th Avenue, which the DEP denied but the city planned to install anyway.
As materials arrived, the DEP sued for an injunction, pitting the two sides against each other in court, where a drawn-out legal battle continues.
“They’re playing this silly game that is endangering people, that’s endangering property,” the mayor said in an interview with the Herald Jan. 12 . “It’s despicable, quite frankly. But it’s pretty much what I’ve come to expect from them at this point.”
Rosenello said he has no faith that the state agency will do its job, and although he regrets not seeking permission in court for the bulkheads the city installed despite the DEP’s resistance, he believes the need for them is obvious.
“Had we not installed those bulkheads on JFK, we would probably, at this point, have lost blocks of the city. We’re at that point again with this section of bulkhead that needs to go in,” he said, referring to the area that breached the next morning.
Rosenello said the city will apply for an emergency authorization with the DEP this week to connect the bulkhead that ends near 12th Avenue to the one just installed in front of the beach patrol headquarters. Earlier in the week, a DEP official visited the city’s beaches to document the damage done by Tuesday’s storm.
“If it’s (emergency authorization) not given in a timely manner or if they (DEP) try to attach unreasonable conditions to it, we go to the judge and we’re in court for it. It’s critically important,” Rosenello said, pointing out the infrastructure, including storm sewers and gas and electric lines, that runs just feet from the encroaching high-tide line.
Rosenello is as perplexed as he is frustrated by the DEP, an agency he said has a duty to provide shore protection but that, he said, has failed miserably at its job.
“Our friends at the DEP, with their head literally and figuratively in the sand, wanted to pretend that something magical was going to happen. Obviously, it didn’t,” the mayor said. “They’re playing this out to the last possible minute, making it as difficult and as expensive and as problematic and endangering the public as much as they can, knowing that they’re going to have to give in because they don’t want to have to argue their case in front of a judge.”
A DEP spokesperson did not respond to a request for a response to the mayor’s comments. The DEP commissioner, Shawn LaTourette, had agreed to a sit-down interview with the Herald this fall to discuss North Wildwood, but he canceled at the last minute and declined to reschedule.
The two sides previously told a judge in court that they had missed deadlines in the city’s suit because the attention had turned to a global settlement encompassing all aspects of the disagreement. The city is suing the DEP for $21 million in a breach of contract claim, and the DEP fined the city $12.8 million, which the city is appealing in a different part of the judiciary.
The settlement discussions have fallen apart, Rosenello said, and the focus has turned back to the litigation.
“It wasn’t a good-faith settlement. It was them trying to get the city to continue to do their job, which is shore protection,” the mayor told the Herald, adding the DEP refused to discuss interim shore protection projects and instead discussed adding conditions to previously authorized work and tried to extract fines and penalties out of the city.
“It wasn’t a settlement discussion in any sense of the word. It was simply a delay tactic,” he added.
The city sent subpoenas to the DEP commissioner and the agency’s former commissioner this week, Rosenello said, compelling them to make themselves available for depositions in the breach of contract litigation.
Additionally, the city will be able to review text messages, emails, letters, meeting minutes and other material during the discovery process.
Rosenello has now turned his focus to a different part of Trenton, to LaTourette’s boss, Gov. Phil Murphy.
“I don’t know what his problem is,” the mayor said. “At this point, I blame the governor. This is his administration; these are his appointees. His own department stated that North Wildwood is the most precarious spot in the state of New Jersey as far as shore protection.
“And the governor hasn’t even contacted us, hasn’t acknowledged it. He was happy to come here last year and march in our July 4th parade to get a photo op. But when it comes to actually doing the job of governor, he’s AWOL.”
Rosenello said the city maintained almost daily contact with someone in the governor’s office last year, but the staffer suddenly got transferred. They haven’t heard from the governor’s office since, he added.
“I just don’t think they care enough, quite frankly, which is why we have to fight them the way we’re fighting them,” he said.
A letter sent to Murphy last week by the Herald, asking for a response to the mayor’s comments and requesting an interview about the overall situation in North Wildwood, remains unanswered.
“The complete dysfunction of the DEP and the complete ignorance of the governor’s office is … why people have no faith in the government anymore,” Rosenello said. “The New Jersey DEP and Governor Murphy are the living epitome of why so many people have so little faith in government. Their lack of engagement, their lack of concern, their lack of being able to get anything productive done is just so disheartening.”
The city’s best hope at a large-scale shore protection project is the long-delayed Five Mile Dune project, which is co-sponsored by the DEP and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. An Army Corps spokesman said they would likely be ready to begin construction within months after real estate acquisitions necessary to begin construction are complete. Those are the sole responsibility of the state.
However, despite years of project delays, the spokesman said the Army Corps is focused on constructing the island-long project, as it’s authorized by Congress.
Contact the author, Shay Roddy, at sroddy@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 142.
