Rising Sea Levels Threaten New Jersey's Industrial and Coastal Communities
Two new studies on New Jersey's rising sea levels predict potentially serious environmental outcomes in the Garden State, from the flooding of numerous toxic sites to significant erosion.
Multiple coasts, spanning from the Delaware Bay to the Hudson River, increase New Jersey's vulnerability to sea-level rise.
When combined with the state's abundance of big industry, that means New Jersey has the nation's second-highest exposure to potential flooding at industrial, toxic, and sewage treatment sites, according to a new peer-reviewed study led by Climate Central, a nonprofit run by scientists.
Meanwhile, a separate new study by Rutgers University says that the state faces a sea-level rise nearly three times faster than the global average over the coming decades.
Taken together, that means New Jersey faces more rising waters rimmed by chemical plants, Superfund sites, fossil fuel ports, and wastewater treatment plants.
"Flooding from sea level rise is dangerous on its own — but when facilities with hazardous materials are in the path of those floodwaters, the danger multiplies," Lara Cushing, an associate professor at UCLA who assisted with the Climate Central study, said in a statement.
Flooding Near Hazardous Facilities
The Climate Central paper, published Thursday in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed and mapped 47,646 hazardous facilities along America's coastlines. Researchers from UCLA, Nanjing University, and UC Berkeley assisted.
The researchers project that 3,740 facilities in the United States are at risk of a 100-year coastal flood within the next 25 years under a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario for sea-level rise (a 100-year flood has a 1% annual chance of occurring). And 5,138 facilities will be at risk by 2100.
Scientists usually consider three scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions when forecasting sea-level rise. A low-emissions scenario means basically no more rise in greenhouse gases. In an intermediate, or moderate, scenario, emissions rise slowly until 2050 and then decline. Under a high-emissions scenario, emissions rise through 2100. Each has an associated impact, with higher emissions resulting in higher sea levels.
More facilities would be flooded if emissions of greenhouse gases, which help trap heat in the atmosphere, go unchecked and continue to climb, the authors found.
Seven states — Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, California, New York, and Massachusetts — account for nearly 80% of projected sites at risk of flooding by 2100.
New Jersey's Industrial Legacy
According to Climate Central, New Jersey has 420 at-risk facilities that will be exposed to flooding by 2050, with the number rising to 492 facilities by 2100. The state is second only to Louisiana, which will have 1,632 facilities at risk by 2050.
Middlesex, Bergen, and Essex Counties have the most exposure, given their proximity to densely populated areas near major ports such as Newark and New York.
However, industrial facilities in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties also have exposure to flooding, some potentially multiple times, given their positions along the Delaware River. So, too, do facilities in Philadelphia.
Chemical and petroleum giants such as ExxonMobil, DuPont, and Chemours have facilities in Gloucester County just off the river, for example. Avient, a maker of specialized polymers, and Riverside Metals have facilities along the river in Burlington County.
In Philadelphia, the Clearview Landfill Superfund site off Darby Creek, Ashland Chemical, and the city's Southwest wastewater treatment plant are at risk of flooding in a major storm.
Indeed, the Delaware River is lined with wastewater treatment plants. Some, such as those in Philadelphia and Camden County, have older systems that together overflow millions of gallons of raw, diluted sewage into the river during storms, though the biggest proportion is from Philly.
Some of the industrial, wastewater treatment, and other facilities are at risk of 12 or more floods annually in decades to come as sea levels rise, according to the Climate Central study.
The authors found that certain communities are more likely to live near at-risk sites, such as those with a higher proportion of renters, households living in poverty, residents who identify as Hispanic, linguistically isolated households, households without vehicles, seniors, and nonvoters.
"This analysis makes it clear that these projected dangers are falling disproportionately on poorer communities," Cushing said, noting that the people in these communities often lack the resources to prepare for, or recover from, flooding.
Rising Seas
Separately, a technical advisory panel at the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center at Rutgers released a report last week focused on rising seas and coastal storms.
The report, commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, found that under a moderate rise in emissions:
- The state is likely to see a sea-level rise between 2.2 and 3.8 feet by 2100.
- Between 2005 and 2020, sea level at tide gauges rose by about 4 inches. That ranged from around 3.7 inches at Atlantic City to around 4.4 inches at Cape May.
- In the near term, New Jersey is likely to experience between 0.9 and 1.7 feet (11 and 20 inches) of sea-level rise by 2050.
"New Jersey's shorelines have experienced and will continue to experience significant erosion driven by sea level rise and storms," a summary of the report states. "While current levels of intervention have successfully reduced erosion rates in some places, these efforts may become economically unsustainable in the future, particularly for lower-income communities."
Further, wetlands, which serve to protect wildlife habitats and the coastline from storm surges, will be greatly impacted.
"Even under a low emissions scenario, future projected rates of sea-level rise in coastal New Jersey may exceed the pace at which many coastal wetlands are able to adapt."
Robert Kopp, a climate scientist and distinguished professor in Rutgers' Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said in a statement that the world is on track to experience about 2.7 degrees Celsius of atmospheric warming by 2100 because of human-caused climate change.
Kopp cautioned that could increase given the change in U.S. climate policies.
Added Janine Barr, a Rutgers senior research specialist: "Sea-level rise is happening now in New Jersey and will continue into the future."
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