Court decision weeks away in Margate dune battle
ATLANTIC CITY - As a new-moon high tide Monday pushed flood waters into nearby streets again, a judge listened to final arguments over whether he should allow the state to condemn 87 lots owned by the City of Margate in order to proceed with a Shore-protection dune project.
ATLANTIC CITY - As a new-moon high tide Monday pushed flood waters into nearby streets again, a judge listened to final arguments over whether he should allow the state to condemn 87 lots owned by the City of Margate in order to proceed with a Shore-protection dune project.
"The state made use of the best technology, the best advice," attorney Stephen Eisdorfer argued before Superior Court Judge Julio Mendez.
"It made rational decisions that maximize the benefit and minimize the harm, both to Margate, and to Ventnor and Longport."
Eisdorfer reiterated testimony that Margate's refusal to go along with the dune project potentially leaves neighboring Ventnor, which has a dune, and Longport, which wants a dune, at greater risk, bolstering a "public purpose" justification for taking the easements. The last 10 blocks of Ventnor's dune bordering Margate failed during the recent storm, leaving a cliff that had to be eliminated.
David Rosenblatt, director of the Office of Flood Hazard Risk Reduction Measures with the state's Department of Environmental Protection, said the stakes are immense.
"The long-term viability of the island is at stake," he said during a break in the hearing. "There is a net loss of sand. We want beaches. We don't want high tides hitting the bulkheads."
But Margate's attorney, Thomas Biemer, countered that Margate's identity as a beach town also was at risk.
"This is not temporary," Biemer said. "You put that dune out there and they will lose 30 to 35 percent of the beach. This is going to change Margate forever."
Biemer said the state's decision to proceed with eminent domain was "arbitrary and capricious" because, back in 1996, it did not subject the alternative - enhancing an existing bulkhead and berm - to more rigorous analysis. It then relied on those tests when the project was revived post-Hurricane Sandy. "They want to do that, and they didn't run the test," he said.
The hearing concluded after three days of testimony that included competing witnesses on both sides, including several engineers from the Army Corps of Engineers and officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection, all heavily invested in the dune project, which is being promoted by Gov. Christie as the best response on the oceanfront post-Sandy.
Pro-dune technicians and scientiss in attendance, like Harry Friebel, a coastal/hydraulic engineer, were eager to defend the merits of the dune project, which has come under fire by Margate and other resisters in Bay Head and Point Pleasant.
Recent events have focused attention on bay flooding, for which, unlike beach flooding, there is no ready remedy like the corps' dune.
"The technology we used is still current," said Randall Wise, a coastal engineer with the corps, based in Philadelphia. The corps has been patiently waiting for the state to gain access to the Margate easements so it can proceed with the project.
"It wouldn't have changed the outcome in any way," Wise said, referring to whether additional or newer model testing should have been done when post-Sandy federal money made a project conceived in 1996 suddenly feasible. And he said current thinking has moved away from putting hard structures such as bulkheads on a beach, because they can cause a beach to erode faster.
Biemer argued to the judge that the decision-making process in the corps' original decision to go with a dune over a bulkhead was "arbitrary and capricious" because it did not fully analyze the bulkhead alternative.
Bill Dixon, a coastal engineer with the state, acknowledged that the dune project could worsen drainage issues from storm water that currently flows through bulkhead openings called "scuppers" onto the beach. But he said Margate did not respond to various suggestions of how to remedy that as part of the dune project.
"Our responsibility is to make sure we are not making a situation worse than is currently there," Dixon said. "I will say this, these scuppers on Absecon Island are fairly unique."
Mendez promised a decision within several weeks.
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