Credit: (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)

A planned new flood rule for New Jersey has become the latest sore spot between Gov. Phil Murphy and the state’s top environmental groups, as the governor faces new criticism for delays in the restrictions.

Thirty environmental groups on Tuesday sent the governor a letter urging him to end a delay in implementing an emergency rule that would increase the number of inland areas in designated flood plains, saying the measure would help protect the state against another Tropical Storm Ida.

The groups wrote to Murphy that they are “sorely disappointed” by his administration’s “continued delays” in adopting strong land-use regulations to protect New Jersey from climate change.

Pisauro: ‘I have heard of no commitment from anybody to actually issue (the emergency flood rule).’

Plans for the emergency rule were unveiled by state Department of Environmental Protection officials in late May in briefings for environmentalists and the business community. DEP officials argued they would be justified in immediately implementing an emergency rule because the public faces “imminent peril” from climate change, and the rule was expected to become effective on June 14.

Raising the flood zone could slow development in some areas because developers would be required to obtain special permits for buildings.

But then came pushback from the business community, which predicted severe economic damage if flood maps were suddenly redrawn to include areas where construction is planned. Groups including the New Jersey Business & Industry Association also denied the public faces “imminent peril.” They said there was no justification for the emergency rule, and that the proposed changes to land-use policy should be subject to the normal rule-making process — one that can take years. An emergency rule was last used by former Gov. Chris Christie in 2013 after Superstorm Sandy.

Impact of emergency rule

The rule would raise flood elevations by 2 feet in nontidal areas such as Bound Brook, where the Raritan River peaked during Ida at more than 3 feet above the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood elevation for a storm that it estimates will occur only once in 100 years.

The rule would also require the use of future projected precipitation when calculating design flood elevation, and would require best management practices on stormwater to be designed to account for current and future precipitation.

It said the data currently used to analyze flood potential in waterways and to design stormwater infrastructure was collected before 1999, and does not take into account the bigger storms coming with climate change.

Murphy’s office issued the following statement: “The Murphy administration recognizes the urgency of the climate crisis, as well as its severe human and economic costs. We are committed to establishing strong new rules to protect against flooding in inland flood-prone areas, such as those affected by Hurricane Ida. We are continuing our discussions with stakeholders around the state as we advance the work of integrating climate resilience across the State’s land use regulations.”

The DEP did not respond to requests for comment on the letter.

But Mike Pisauro, a spokesman for the environmentalists, said the DEP had confirmed to him that the emergency rule had been delayed, and that there would be additional meetings of stakeholders to discuss the plan, starting next week.

The extra meetings may be a sign of more delay in implementing the rule, and that helps to explain the groups’ call to Murphy to implement the rule now, said Pisauro, who is policy director of the Watershed Institute, an environmental group based in Pennington.

“I have heard of no commitment from anybody to actually issue it,” he said, referring to the emergency rule.

Pisauro said he didn’t know specifically why the rule has been held up but said he had heard of a “significant number” of calls and emails to Murphy’s office from the business community protesting the rule.

The need for speed

In their letter, the environmentalists welcomed Murphy’s calls for the state to speed up its adaptation to climate change — as in his Executive Order 100 of January 2020 — but said his administration has not followed through on its promises with rules that would make it harder to build in areas that are increasingly prone to flooding.

The signers included many of the top environmental organizations in the state, including the Watershed Institute, New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, New Jersey Highlands Coalition, Environment New Jersey, and New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

They accused the DEP of being six months behind Murphy’s schedule for publishing new climate-centered rules under its Protecting Against Climate Threats (NJ PACT) process.

In Executive Order 100, Murphy directed the DEP to integrate climate change into regulatory and permitting programs by adopting NJ PACT by Jan. 27 this year, but that hasn’t happened, the groups said.

Cantor: ‘We do not know why (the emergency rule) was not proposed and we don’t want to presume what the Governor or DEP may or may not be thinking.’

“Not only have these rules called for in EO 100 not been adopted, they have not even been proposed. New Jersey is still waiting for the bold action that you rightly told us our state needs,” the groups told Murphy.

They argued that DEP held stakeholder meetings in 2018, 2019 and 2020 in which officials argued that rainfall data used by the state to plan for infrastructure like stormwater drains was out of date, and did not reflect the likelihood of heavier, more frequent storms resulting from climate change. And in November 2020, the agency published scientific data to support the new climate conditions, the letter said.

“Now is the time to act on the only possible conclusion, to update the regulations to use the most current, protective data,” the letter said.

Business community protests

Ray Cantor, a spokesman for the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, confirmed that more stakeholder meetings are planned but he didn’t know whether the business community’s protests were responsible for the delay.

“Hopefully, the DEP and Governor listened to our concerns and decided not to propose the emergency rule, at least not in the form previously described. But we do not know why it was not proposed and we don’t want to presume what the Governor or DEP may or may not be thinking,” he said.

The business and industry group recognizes that flood maps need updating and that rainfall “may” be increasing but says there is no “imminent peril” to the public from climate change, and so the rule should be subject to the regular rule-making process, Cantor said.