Can Humans Protect Wetlands?

From the Garden State Parkway to Cape May County’s heavily developed barrier islands runs a strip of more than 17,700 acres preserved as the Cape May Coastal Wetlands.
Running from Great Egg Harbor Bay at the north end of the county to Cape May Harbor, most of the area was preserved through state Green Acres bonds.
Crossed by busy causeways and abandoned railroad tracks, cut with the straight lines of drainage systems cut decades ago and the twisting tributaries and inlets leading to innumerable bays, this soggy landscape would be protected from development even if it were not preserved as a state wildlife management area.
Not because it would be impossible to build there. Once upon a time in Cape May County, whole neighborhoods were built on marshland, before strict protections were put in place to save this landscape as a vital part of the local ecosystem.
“Decades ago, we lost a lot of wetlands to neighborhood development,” said Lawrence Hajna, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Now, it’s almost impossible to get a permit for development on wetlands, and in those rare cases where development gets approved, such as for a project to raise Sea Isle Boulevard, it requires creating more wetlands at another location to replace what was filled.
Naturalists describe the marshes as part land and part water. In some areas, daily tides wash them over, while others are only submerged about once a month, but all tidal marshes are defined by regular immersion. They are considered a vital part of the shore ecosystem, serving as incubators for fish and habitat for wildlife, while blunting the impact of flooding on the communities nearby.
But threats remain. Regardless of the skeptics, most scientists have little doubt that sea levels are rising.
Even a small change could make a big difference in a landscape that evolved to be immersed.  
Wetlands are getting wetter
For many coastal planners, there is no longer any question of whether seas will rise. It’s a matter of how high.
A February report from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated that even accounting for tides, seasonal changes, and storms, the seas are rising by between eight-tenths of an inch to 2 inches a decade.
Over time, that will mean more flooding for coastal communities, the report finds. Waterfront areas that see flooding from severe storms will see more flooding from a windy high tide, NOAA projects, and some coastal areas that have not seen flooding before can expect it in the future.
NOAA scientists have found the global mean sea level has been rising since at least 1880. Since then, the mean sea level has risen 8 to 12 inches, with about 3 inches of that rise occurring since 1993.
“Long-term sea level rise driven by global climate change presents clear and highly consequential risks to the United States over the coming decades and centuries,” a 2017 NOAA report states.
Even a small change in the sea level may have dire consequences for coastal communities. The NOAA report cites one study that indicates a sea level rise of less than a meter would inundate coastal communities that are home to millions of Americans, and make the infrastructure that serves these communities and the ecosystems around them more vulnerable.                                                                                                                                        “Sea level rise is going to have an impact on our salt marshes and coastal wetlands,” said Patty Doerr, the director of marine and coastal programs for The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey.
Some suggest that means the efforts and expense of protecting the wetlands no longer make sense. Doerr argues that the reality is just the opposite.
According to Doerr, wetlands play a vital part in coastal economies, in addition to their importance as habitat for a variety of species. The marsh acts as an incubator for many of the fish that are vital for commercial and recreational fishing industries, she said. 
They also blunt the impact of coastal storms.
“Marshes can play a pretty critical role in reducing flood damage,” she said. In part, marshes are a place for water to go. A healthy marsh also helps reduce the power of waves before they damage infrastructure and property. One study estimates that marshes prevented $425 million in damages during Hurricane Sandy, she said. 
Sandy was a turning point
For decades, marshes were seen as a problem – something to be removed, not protected. Those deep cut canals that can be found in the north end of Cape May County were dug in an effort to drain marshes to reduce the mosquito population, and many towns encouraged developers to fill marshland for development.
By the 1970s, the state began to enact protections for these areas, according to the DEP’s Hajna, as a consensus grew that they are a key part of the environment.
While strict protections have been in place for decades, Hajna said if anything the state is more concerned about the health of its wetlands.
“Post-Superstorm Sandy, there’s been a renewed focus on the wetlands,” he said. It’s part of an initiative known as living shorelines. It may be a good idea to build beaches, but it’s a better idea to build them to reflect the natural shape of the shore and to plant indigenous vegetation that will help keep that sand in place despite erosion from wind and rain.
In the marsh, one element of this renewed approach sees government and environmental groups working together to protect salt marshes from rising water.
An experimental project began in 2014, taking material dredged from waterways and adding it to the marsh, building up the wetlands in an attempt to keep pace with rising seas.
In the marsh behind Avalon and Stone Harbor, the Army Corps of Engineers took material from the Intracoastal Waterway and added it to the wetlands.
The project involved a number of partners, and cost about $8 million, including another portion of the project on the Delaware Bay. The largest share of the funding came from a post-Sandy Coastal Resiliency Grant program, with about $2 million each from the Army Corps and the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
The Nature Conservancy also participated.
Doerr said the idea won’t solve every issue, but could be part of a larger strategy for protecting communities in a wetter future, along with hard barriers like seawalls.  
First, do no harm
Another participating agency is The Wetlands Institute. In the organization’s landmark headquarters just outside of Stone Harbor, Executive Director Lenore Tedesco said she looks out at thousands of acres of marsh, and wonders what human beings could possibly do to protect them. The wetlands are an incredibly complex system, she said. While it’s clear that seas are rising, in some instances, the regular immersion could help build up the marsh, even if it erodes it elsewhere.
“We’ve got to make sure if we’re helping, we really are helping,” she said. As for the 2014 project, well, they’re still looking at the impact, she said, adding that it takes a long time for a marsh to adapt.
She said the project included two elements. One built-up areas for beach-nesting birds, which she said does not help the marsh but seems to have attracted endangered birds that have very few places to nest on the busy and heavily developed barrier islands.
The other part of the project sprayed a thin layer of dredged material onto the marsh, building up that land.
This is where she’s less certain of the impact. In some cases, she said, it may be a way to help the marsh keep pace with rising seas.
Tedesco, and Doerr, both see potential in the process, but only if it can be shown to help the marsh, not if it is just a way to dispose of more dredged material. 
What does overregulation look like?
Wetlands issues certainly aren’t anything new in Cape May County. The impetus for this story grew out of a conversation between Cape May County Herald Publisher Art Hall and Mike McKeaney, who recently joined the Cape Issues group, an informal organization that looks at ways to improve life in Cape May County.
For McKeaney, however important wetlands protection may be for the environment, the sense of scale is now way out of proportion. He cited the county work underway to build up Sea Isle Boulevard, a multimillion-dollar project that has taken years already. In that instance, remediation is required because a fraction of an acre of wetlands was disrupted. There are thousands of acres of wetlands nearby, he points out, blaming the “bureaucrats and bean counters” in Trenton for having no sense of scale.
“It’s insane to think that that would have any impact on any endangered species or even a non-endangered species,” he said. 
He accepts that seas are rising with a changing climate, although he expresses doubt that human beings have much if anything to do with it.
Hall went further, suggesting that efforts to preserve wetlands made little sense if they are destined to be submerged in the coming decades.
That issue goes beyond the wetlands. 
The NOAA reports project increasing challenges for coastal communities like the Jersey Shore. According to these scientists, there are several issues at play. Rising temperatures have melted Arctic ice, which means more water in the oceans. But that’s not the whole picture. The water itself is warming, and warm water expands, which adds to still higher mean water levels.
Plus, New Jersey appears to be sinking. During the last ice age, vast sheets of ice weighed down the continental plate that includes much of the Northeastern United States.
As that ice has melted, the liquid rock underneath has slowly seeped back into that section of the plate, incrementally changing the angle so that New Jersey is dropping by a tiny amount each year. 
Added up, those forces are likely to mean more flooding in coastal communities, including much of Cape May County.
The state is taking the issues seriously. A DEP report indicated that hundreds of thousands live in vulnerable communities and that 60 percent of the state’s coastline is vulnerable to sea level rise.
The state’s coastal management plan includes protecting natural systems like the wetlands as part of the answer. The same report estimates that New Jersey lost 2.58 square miles of wetlands to development from 2007 to 2012, while in the same period, 2.89 square miles became open water.
“There’s definitely no silver bullet,” said Doerr with the Nature Conservancy. Storm resilient construction, better flood protection, bulkheads, and a healthy salt marsh should all play a part.
Long term, coastal communities will face tough questions about sustainability and development, she said, questions that she believes will need to be tackled by local communities.
Seas have risen and fallen throughout geologic time, Tedesco points out. At one point, most of what is now New Jersey was submerged. The current balance of wetlands – which accrue and erode as the seas change – go back about 2,400 years, she said.
But Doerr added that beyond their utilitarian appeal or any financial arguments, the coastal wetlands are a fundamental part of the character of the Jersey shore.
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.