Cape May pits environment against aesthetics

Some Cape May residents are finding the Historic Preservation Commission's strict opposition to environmental improvements - solar panels that can be seen from the street and any windmills - that they are referring to them as the "gingerbread police".

News from the shore

As a potentially significant storm season looms, it may not be a good sign that competition for beach replenishment work is down.  Meanwhile, the Cape May Herald reports that Avalon has just reopened it beach after an emergency replenishment.

Sea Level Rise Redux

For the folks at Temple-Ambler I offer this incomplete reading list on SLR and Coastal Development.

• Living by the Rules of the Sea. David Bush, Orrin Pilkey, and William Neal. Duke University Press, 1996
• The Rising Sea by Orrin Pilkey and Rob Young, 2009
• "How High Will Seas Rise? Get Ready for Seven Feet" in E360 (e360.yale.edu) (14 Jan 2010) Rob Young and Orrin Pilkey, 2010
• J.G. Titus and J. Wang. 2008. EPA 430R07004. USEPA Washington DC. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/background.html
• Grinsted, Moore and Jevrejeva, 2009, Reconstructing sea level from paleo and projected temperatures 200 to 2100 AD. Climate Dynamics.
• Reconstructing sea level from paleo and projected temperatures 200 to 2100 AD Grinsted, Moore and Jevrejeva, Climate Dynamics, 2009
• Scarfo, R. A. 1986. "Stewardship in the 20th century," Landscape Architectural Review, 7: 2, 13-15.
• Scarfo, R. A. 1988. "Stewardship and the Profession of Landscape Architecture," Landscape Journal, 7 (1988): 1, 60-68.

Good News, Bad News for Red Knots

Amanda Dey says that the good news is that the red knots appear to be on the rebound, but the bad news is that it is still a very delicate population that could easily crash.

Emergency Services

It seems like that ever since I started reading the Cape May Herald last fall, there has hardly been a day with mentioning some sort of emergency services or OEM activity.

Cape May County still underwater?

Headline from yesterday's Cape May Herald: "Excessive Rainfall Leaves Upper Villas Flooded"

Locals may immediately notice that we haven't had rain this week.  It turns out that this is about a much more persistent problem - a different one than plagues the Atlantic side of the County.  Interesting stuff.

The Jersey Shore is going down!

The Cape May Herald reports on two studies that say that sea level rise will be worse in that area than elsewhere. Not only is the sea level rising there, but the land is slowly sinking into the Atlantic. The Philadelphia Enquirer spoke with the researchers at Penn responsible for the papers as well as other experts:

"There are two take-homes here," added Kenneth Miller, a Rutgers University researcher who reviewed the studies. "There's been an acceleration of sea-level rise from pre-Industrial Revolution rates.. . . And we're throwing on one to two millimeters a year in New Jersey due to sinking."

Just to be safe, LBI schools will implement a new policy to try to reduce the weight pressing down on their sinking barrier island.

Getting messy in Cape May County

Looks like the storm is already making our Fall study area a bit complicated with flood alarms and closed routes.

Public student presentation

Public Presentation by Students of Intermediate Landscape Architecture I

11:550:331

DESIGN EXPLORATIONS IN A SEA LEVEL RISE LANDSCAPE

Monday December 21st
12 Noon

At Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Cape May County
355 Court House/So Dennis RoadCape May Court House, NJ

RSVP: dtulloch@crssa.rutgers.edu

Giant dune

The Cape May Herald had this great photo of the storm damage at North Wildwood in their set of photos from T.S. Ida. I posted it because it reminded me of a few of today's proposals for engineered interventions in our design jury. Check out their other photos.

State of Emergency in Cape May County!

Seriously, Cape May County declared a state of emergency yesterday due to coastal flooding and storms. Sea level rise isn't just going to suddenly happen. Each storm will just get slightly more costly than the last. Today lots of schools are closed and evacuation maps are posted online. They even closed the zoo. Avalon canceled their Borough council meeting.

This can't be good.

Why don't they do something? The Philadelphia Inquirer had one answer:

Although Wildwood's flooding was its deepest in years, Sgt. Jim Nanos was taking it in stride.

"It's a way of life when you live down here," he said. "When you get high winds and high water, you adjust your life accordingly."

Sure, it is just a storm. Just another one. Another expensive one:



Today the Cape May-Lewes ferry is closed. The Coast Guard had to suspend their search for the lost boat. But we'll still have class.

(The Star-Ledger Photo from Lavalette is a real keeper)

Get to know Cape May

According to NJ Monthly it is a good place for going back in time, shopping and jazz.

Sea level rise and coastal erosion

WNYC's Brian Lehrer had on coastal experts Orrin Pilkey and Rob Young to talk about sea level rise issues that could impact the NY/NJ area. While their new book, The Rising Sea, looks at the larger issues, the radio conversation focused more on specific places like Cape May and Fire Island. Give it a listen.

Meanwhile, RealClimate presents a pretty detailed discussion about some new understandings (and questions) about the ways we measure and estimate future sea level rise.

Getting to know Cape May

While trying to get to know a little more about Cape May County, I found that WestJerseyHistory.Org has a great collection of postcards online that give a real sense of the place. It is a much more extensive collection than at Penny Postcards.

Some are a little more touristy:






While other capture the real life of the locals:

Fall Studio: Sea Level Rise

When you think of Cape May, you probably think of old Victorians and great beaches, not a community at risk. This fall in studio, we will be changing our perspective a bit.

While I am still unprepared to reveal all of the final details, I wanted to share the basic outline of our fall studio project for Intermediate Landscape Architecture I (11:550:331). The entire semester will be spent exploring design interventions and implications of sea level rise and global warming in Cape May County, New Jersey with funding assistance from the New Jersey Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The project will be building on the results of the Spring 2009 Advanced Environmental Geomatics class. CRSSA has already created some great research on the Vulnerability of New Jersey's Coastal Habitats to Sea Level Rise that will give you a sense for both the seriousness of the threat and the diversity of issues wrapped up in this seemingly simple problem. SEBS researchers and Rutgers alums are all looking into the problem.

Cape May County has become the high profile location of an ecological decline that is represented in the falling populations of the interconnected populations of red knots and horseshoe crabs. This got some national attention when PBS aired an entire episode looking at the problem, but has been the focus of research here at Rutgers and at the NJ DEP for some time. It is also a great spot for ecotourism, which would presumably decline quickly as the natural landscapes are degraded.

One of the clear challenges would be to start building an infrastructure now that will better support the future residents of Cape May County. What would high performance infrastructure guidelines tell us about where we should be looking? We aren't the first people to explore these topics, so we need to learn from past studies if we are going to accomplish something new.

The certain threat and the uncertain details make sea level rise, and the larger patterns of climate change, an interesting problem for designers. In the San Francisco Bay Area, concerns about sea level rise (as shown in their local paper) led to the Rising Tides Competition this summer. Hopefully we'll get to see some results this fall before we are too far along in our project. I strongly encourage our students to look back at the IFLA 2008 Student Competition, which gives some great ideas about both the imaginative and serious aspects of this as a design issue.

You should also take a little time to peruse both popular portrayals and serious discussions of climate change and sea level rise. Keep an eye on regular news accounts about the science. How are going to communicate the complexity of the issue? How are we, as a class and a team, going to resolve uncertainties? Do we need to educate the public or are they fairly aware? We'll be sifting through countless agency reports, like the recent EPA report on Adaptation Planning for the National Estuary Program, and trying to organize the things we learn from them. We are also going to start paying attention to more and more mundane things like maps of sidewalks. Keep your eyes (and browser) open for these and keep careful records of what you see.

If you can get out and explore, it would be great. But if you can only get to Trenton, that would work too. The New Jersey State Museum in Trenton also has an exhibit called Rising Tide: Climate Change & Sea Level Rise in New Jersey.

But take some time to get to know Cape May County. Think about the landmarks and people. What is it known for? What is it like for tourists? But what is it like for year-round residents?

Finally, Places and Spaces will now be an active focused source with at least 3 tags for this project: cape may, JrStudio, sea level rise. Use them to keep up.

Designated Centers

Just as a quick review, a recent list of the State Plan's Designated Centers can be found online (PDF).

For those fixated on Cap May County, here are the Designated Centers there:

Avalon
Cape May
Cape May Point
Stone Harbor
The Wildwoods

Crash: A Tale of Two Species

When you need a break from studying, this might be a productive diversion.

Nature on PBS has a great show called Crash: A Tale of Two Species examining the relationship between the horseshoe crab and the red knot, and how the NJ DEP is trying to track the decline of both species across the entire Western Hemisphere. The link above allows you to watch the entire show online.

The NJ DEP and CRSSA are involved because Cape May County is one of the epicenters of this decline. A recent CRSSA report shows, among other things, how spatial the problem is.