Latest NJ Deadly Floods Expose Murphy DEP Climate And Flooding Regulatory Failures
River Flooding Again Shows That DEP's New Inland Flood Rules Are Weak
Two Killed In NJ Flooding The Day After Gov. Murphy Weakened Coastal Flood Rules
Climate Chaos Is Driving Extreme Rainfall, Yet DEP Making No Progress In Reducing Emissions
Two people were killed and a house exploded in yesterday's most recent flooding, see the NJ Spotlight story:
These most recent repeat central jersey floods triggered another Emergency Declaration by Gov. Murphy, just one day after he directed DEP to weaken proposed coastal flood protections.
This most recent flooding reveals that DEP's highly touted "inland flood rules" adopted in July of 2023 were weak and ineffective.
As we wrote, those rules were "obsolete" when they were proposed. They were based on a fatally flawed approach that gave people a false sense of security and allowed additional development to worsen flooding:
Unfortunately, the environmental groups are supporting and cheerleading for this proposal and ignoring serious flaws, such as:
the proposal is based on the 100 Year Storm event, despite NJ having suffered several 500 Year Storms
the proposal is scientifically obsolete before it is adopted
DEP ignores land use planning and instead relies on the myth of “Resilience”
I explained the significance of DEP's continued reliance on the flawed 100 year storm in this September 4, 2021 post:
I get tired of having to say I told you so.
How many people must die before NJ State government gets serious? ("serious", as in development restrictions (including retrofit requirements for existing development); "managed retreat" (beyond single shot voluntary site specific willing seller buyouts); enforceable regulation of GHG emissions; and mandates to force accelerated transition to renewable energy and electrification).
These latest floods were the result of another extreme rainfall event. These events are driven by climate chaos. Climate chaos is driven by human greenhouse gas emissions, which continue to increase, despite all the scientific warnings and extreme weather events.
Which highlights a dual Murphy DEP regulatory failure: in addition to ineffective land use and flood controls, the Murphy DEP has done very little to reduce actual greenhouse gas emissions. Yet there is virtually no criticism or accountability for - or media coverage of - this failure.
And the legislature refuses to conduct oversight hearings or put teeth in the aspirational and unenforceable emissions reduction goals of the NJ Global Warming Response Act.
The Murphy administration has also failed to expand sufficient renewable energy capacity (the Governor's off shore wind program collapsed and the rate of solar growth has waned) or accelerate the necessary transition to electrification of transportation and buildings.
In closing, as there appears to be a huge debate emerging on sea level rise based on DEP's claims that the substantive changes to the proposed coastal REAL flood rules were based on revised climate science - not politics and economics - we will drill down on that issue in our next post.