BERKELEY – A rising tide doesn’t just lift all boats, as the saying goes. It also floods streets and houses.
Shore communities have been hit hard with flooding and residents have said that places that never used to flood are doing so more frequently.
Berkeley Shores residents spoke at a recent meeting, again making the case for federal relief, since it will cost many millions of dollars to fix this.
Fred Bekarian, former head of the Berkeley Shores Homeowners’ Civic Association, spoke about the rising tides. He said that Congressional spending might be the only way out of this.
Bill McGrath, a professional surveyor, said that there is critical flooding during high tide. The rain and storms make it worse but there is still sunny day flooding.
McGrath is on the volunteer Berkeley Township Waterways Advisory Commission. A few years ago, they prepared a list of 14 problem spots in town. They measured the elevation, recorded how often they flood and how high the water gets. They continue to monitor trouble areas.
One location floods 60 times a year, as little as 1 inch to as much as 2 feet, he said. One of the most elevated locations on the list is Teakwood Drive, which saw flooding 12 times a year.
This part of Berkeley Township is represented in the House of Representatives by Congressman Jefferson Van Drew. Officials brought the issue to him in 2023 in order for him to bring in congressional spending.
A few residents have complained at meetings that last year, Van Drew brought in about half a billion for his district, but the only part of it that went to Ocean County was $750,000 for a project on Long Beach Island.
It used to be that only low-lying areas would flood consistently. Locals tried to avoid these spots, but the people living on these roads would be inconvenienced every time there was a heavy rain. Some areas are close to the Toms River or the Barnegat Bay, so they were prone to flooding from high tides.
Officials have said the town would respond by fixing problem spots when they could, but the flooding has become so common that perhaps a larger solution is needed.
Simply raising the road would cause problems for residents of that road, because the water has to go somewhere, officials have said. If the road is higher than driveways or basements, the water will go into houses. A larger, holistic approach is necessary.
Key locations of the Waterways study included (starting with the lowest elevation): Bayview and Pier avenues; Balsam Drive; Eugene Furey Boulevard and Bayview Avenue; Harbor Court; Dorrance Drive and Bayview Avenue; Sloop Creek Road and Bayview Avenue; Bay Boulevard; Avalon and Riviera avenues; the end of Evergreen Drive; Good Luck Drive; Main Street; Leach Court; North Bay and Longview drives; the end of Teakwood Drive; as well as Moorage Avenue and Veeder Lane.
There are a few factors entering into the study. The first is that the sea levels are rising, McGrath said in a previous interview. The second is that the land is sinking.
When groundwater is pumped out of underground aquifers to drink, wash cars, and water the lawn, it impacts the land above. That water isn’t being replaced, and the ground starts to sink, he said.
The land is sinking about 1 mm a year, McGrath said. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but compounded with the water level rising, there is a serious issue.
A Rutgers study noted by the Waterways Committee projected a rise in sea levels at the Jersey shore between 2.5 and 5 feet by 2100.
“We have actual measurement documentation over a very long period of time for sea level rise and land subsidence (sinking of land) due to potable water extraction. Further vulnerability to future coastal storms like Sandy looms in our future. In decades to come, the sites on this inventory will become totally impassible. Some of the sites are along emergency evacuation routes which will have to be addressed. Proactive and coordinated efforts for long term resiliency planning will have to occur in order to protect Berkeley Township’s residential assets and infrastructure,” the study concluded.
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