New Jersey’s increased risk of climate change makes the push for infrastructure resilience critical in a state with nearly 130 miles of mostly developed coastline, the third-fastest rising temperatures among states in the United States and second only to Texas in flood losses recorded by FEMA, Shawn LaTourette, Commissioner of its Department of Environmental Protection told the ENR NY-NJ Infrastructure Forum on September 16, stressing that “the mitigation of the climate affects all sectors of our industry and society.”
Those include addressing what caused a nine-mile algal bloom two years ago that “impacted one of the most consequential drinking water intakes in the state,” he told more than 430 conference attendees at the ‘event in Manhattan, and pointed out the urgency of the measures being taken to secure. “We are building in a resilient way … if we want to avoid more catastrophic impacts.”
LaTourette acknowledged that regulators may not be “prepared to deal with all the risks, [but] we can help citizens strengthen and become more resilient to climate issues.” He pointed to a three-pronged NJDEP approach that emphasizes “thought leadership” in resiliency; mitigation through state-funded programs and federal that the agency oversees, such as purchases of floodplain properties within Blue Acres; and “statewide regulatory reforms.”
The agency “is making progress on many initiatives to integrate our climate realities into governance,” LaTourette said, including a $1 billion upgrade that would increase the resiliency of the 1,200-acre Liberty State Park that faces Manhattan in the along the Hudson River and the proposed Resilient Environments and Landscapes Rules (REAL) that would create coastal flood zones requiring 5 feet of elevation on new structures, as well as redeveloped ones that were previously exempt.
The rule package could make New Jersey the first to make a “comprehensive update” to climate-focused coastal development rules, the agency said, and would include amendments to existing regulations on flood risk, water pluvials, coastal areas and freshwater wetlands. REAL would also address issues affecting overburdened communities.
“We are 1727042287 using data from 20 years ago to reconstruct this is not going to lead to better resiliency,” LaTourette said. “The state’s flood limits are higher than the FEMA maps say.” He said REAL ” it’s meant to correct old data,” and noted that “we need to look at the reality of designing and building in areas that won’t flood.” Experts project a 2-foot sea level rise to affect New Jersey by 2050. “We have to be honest with the reality of our changing climate,” LaTourette said.
But state business groups strongly oppose the new requirements, with one saying they are based “on the policy that people and businesses should be forced off the coast” and on “flawed scientific assumptions “. Noting that insurers are “now waking up” to the reality of climate change risks in New Jersey, LaTourette said they “have to be convinced that [it] it remains a safe bet”.
He added: “If you come to us with something sturdy, we’ll make sure you get a permit.”
Overcoming new risks
Resilience of regional bridge infrastructure was a particular focus of the conference, related to both climate impacts and those caused by human error, following March’s collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore by a ship strike which killed six construction workers who were on the structure.
Bridge designers and managers pointed to new challenges in planning for known risks, but also for those that are less predictable, but still within the realm of “known unknowns,” said Rizwan Baig, chief engineer of the Port Authority of New York and NJ. He said engineers have long engineered potential risk, but knowing how to address unexpected or as-yet-unknown impacts is a more uncertain and demanding task. “You have to train your engineering workforce not to go to the engineering manual all the time to solve the problem,” he said.
Companies design for certain risks, such as explosions or wires being cut “by bad actors,” said Jamie Barbas, New York State Thruway Authority project executive, MTA board member and commissioner of Gateway development. “There are a lot of things in the design of the bridge that we can really try to harden and make sure [such damage impacts] They’re unlikely to succeed,” he said. While bridges built to standards developed by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials are “a very solid foundation for engineering,” they often they’ve fallen behind emerging trends and new technologies. We need a dynamic code that’s constantly changing and being evaluated,” Barbas said.
Paul Schwartz, the New York City Department of Transportation’s deputy commissioner in its bridge division, noted that the agency was pushing for “performance-based metrics” in bridge design rather than prescriptive ones, working with experts in city climate to establish design criteria based on the oriented sea. raising the level and include them in the agency’s capital plan. He also noted the need for more preventive maintenance “because there’s no way you can do it and update everything overnight.” Schwartz added, “Sometimes it’s the simple things that lead to really disastrous incidents. We’re looking at how structures have changed over time and settled.”
The City of Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority is using the technology “to look for intruders and issue alerts when those intruders actually appear,” agency President Catherine Sheridan told attendees. “We rely on standards to guide our engineering decisions in light of the changes we’re seeing, both natural and man-made. But are these standards enough, and what do we need to change to enable us to design and build more resilient infrastructure? “
But there’s still a long lag in national standards of protection being adopted into codes at the local level, said Maria Lehman, vice chairwoman of the White House National Infrastructure Advisory Council, president emeritus of ASCE and national director of GHD infrastructure. “This is like open season for lawyers to sue you,” he said.
Bridge design managers need to be more diligent about making sure that once a standard is adopted, “to actually put it into practice,” Lehman said. “it’s a difficult thing to tackle, so we have to think differently. We’re going to need a seismic shift in our thought process about this … and we’re going to need funding because it can’t rely on volunteers or understaffed state agencies.”
Diversity efforts also need resilience
Speakers at the forum also noted the importance of ensuring business diversity programs are resilient in providing the staff needed to complete projects, especially as they face new legal attacks from right-wing groups and states in conservative courts who show more willingness to end or reduce them. Paul Monte, a partner at the law firm Peckar & Abramson, pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down an affirmative action college admissions program as unconstitutional and pointed to the courts lowers in Tennessee and Texas who want more clarity on how the programs fit, why they lack completion dates and what their measures of success are.
“I think it’s a matter of when and not if ‘government diversity programs in construction’ will be eliminated, and that’s a difficult thing to say,” said Phillip A. Washington, CEO of the national organization without non-profit The Equity in Infrastructure Project, he told attendees. His program, which grew out of the 2021 federal infrastructure law, now includes up to 75 U.S. infrastructure agencies at various levels that are committed to awarding more prime contracts to historically underutilized companies, he said.
The Port Authority relies on hundreds of small businesses, many of which are owned by minorities and women, “to support our operation,” said José Febrillet, its diversity, equity and inclusion officer. He said the recently completed redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport included $2.2 billion awarded to minority and women-owned businesses, as well as more than $1 billion to local businesses.
Agency directors collaborated on the outreach, said Gregory A. Jenifer, managing director of consultant Armand Resource Group, which helped in the effort to ease insurance requirements, among other barriers to entry. . But he acknowledged the need for smaller companies to be realistic about their capabilities. “It’s a matter of responding and understanding the needs,” he said.
With so much transit work coming up in New York City that will disrupt its diverse population, “the ability to affect economic disparity and the economic health of our community cannot be ignored,” Lourdes Zapata, director of of diversity and inclusion of the MTA. He noted that a pilot local recruitment agency now actively monitoring four projects to track local impact on recruitment, hours worked and wages for an assessment of “when you can take your foot off the pedal, and still we’re not there.”
