Landis Avenue in Sea Isle City is swamped with floodwater during a coastal storm in December 2023.
The numbers are astonishing: More than 6,400 homes across New Jersey could be elevated over the next 50 years to protect them from flooding caused by rising sea levels.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that is proposing the plan, says it would cost about $7.6 billion to implement, although funding has not yet been approved by the federal or state governments.
A representative of the Army Corps appeared before the Cape May County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday to update county officials on the plan, which was first unveiled in December 2024.
The Army Corps, in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, is conducting a flooding study within New Jersey’s Back Bay area, the network of interconnected tidal water bodies located landward of the coastline in Atlantic, Cape May, Burlington, Monmouth and Ocean counties.
The study area encompasses approximately 950 square miles and nearly 3,400 miles of shoreline across 89 municipalities.
“The objective of the study is to investigate problems and solutions to reduce damages from coastal storm-related flooding that affects population, critical infrastructure, property, and ecosystems,” the study concludes.
Engineering and economic analyses indicate the study area could experience $2.6 billion in average annual flood damages over a 50-year period if no action is taken, Army Corps spokesman Steve Rochette said Wednesday.
Rochette noted that the plan would reduce the average amount of damages within the study area by about $258.6 million annually if it is implemented.
The plan calls for elevating 6,421 homes, across 950 square miles, above flooding levels. It also includes flood-proofing 279 critical infrastructure facilities such as hospitals, police departments and fire companies.
A "Road Closed" sign blocks access to a flooded street in Ocean City. Steve Bower, a project manager with the Army Corps of Engineers, told the Cape May County Board of Commissioners that homeowners would not be required to have their homes elevated because the project would be voluntary.
“It’s not mandatory. We’re not going to go to them and say you must do this. They can decline, and we’ll just move on to the next house,” Bower was quoted by The Press of Atlantic City.
As ambitious as the plan may seem, it has been scaled back from the Army Corps’ initial proposal in 2021 for a total of $16 billion in flood-mitigation projects to protect a large swath of Atlantic, Cape May, Burlington, Monmouth and Ocean counties.
Among the ideas that have since been shelved, the original plan called for construction of massive storm barriers across the Great Egg Harbor, Manasquan and Barnegat inlets to protect shore communities from storm surge.
One of the main ways the Army Corps protects coastal communities from flooding is by replenishing the beaches and dunes that are eroded by coastal storms.
In 2024, for instance, the Army Corps and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection teamed up for a $39.2 million beach replenishment project in Ocean City, Sea Isle City and Strathmere.
Separately, the NJDEP has its own plan – known as the Resilient Environments and Landscapes regulations, or NJPACT/REAL – to protect the coast and other flood-prone areas of the state from climate change and rising sea levels over the next 75 years.
One of the more controversial aspects of the NJDEP’s plan is a requirement that home construction or major renovation projects in areas vulnerable to rising sea levels would have to be built 5 feet above existing flood-elevation requirements.
Cape May County and the county’s 16 municipalities have adopted resolutions formally objecting to the regulations. Cape May County officials have called on Gov. Phil Murphy to slow down on the regulations. They want him to take an incremental approach toward rising sea levels based on more conservative flood projections in the state.
According to Cape May County officials, the proposed state regulations would actually discourage people from living at the shore by making it much tougher and more expensive to build homes on or near the coast – including the possibility that many would have to be elevated 5 feet higher to comply with flood-protection requirements.
Bulldozers working in tandem spread fresh sand on the beach in Ocean City in 2023.
