Urban Coast Institute Associate Director Tom Herrington and Department of Chemistry and Physics Adjunct Professor Matt Paccico delivered the joint presentation “The Sea at our Doorstep – How Rising Sea Level Will Change Our Coastal Communities in the Next 30 Years and Beyond” on Jan. 30, 2023, at the Edison Science Hall. Following the presentation, Kislak Real Estate Institute Interim Director Gina McKeever joined the panelists for a Q&A session with the audience.
The event kicked off Monmouth University’s 2023 Climate Crisis Teach-In lecture series. Visit the series web page for a full schedule of upcoming lectures.
Abstract
The elevation of the sea relative to land has varied greatly over the history of the Earth, from 330 feet higher than today during the Cretaceous Period 100 million years ago to 400 feet lower than present at the end of the last glacial maximum 22,000 years ago. In the distant past and the present, global mean sea level rise is a direct effect of climate change, resulting from a combination of thermal expansion of warming ocean waters and the addition of water mass into the ocean, largely associated with the loss of ice from glaciers and ice sheets. Sea levels will continue to rise due to the ocean’s sustained response to the warming that has already occurred — even if climate change mitigation succeeds in limiting surface air temperatures in the coming decades. Due to the increase in global warming over the last century, sea level along the U.S. East Coast is projected to rise, on average, 10-14 inches (0.25 – 0.35 meters) in the next 30 years (2020-50), which will be as much as the rise measured over the last 100 years (1920-2020). Beyond 2050, uncertainty in sea level rise projections increases substantially, due to uncertainties in future greenhouse gas emissions and in long-term ice sheet stability in a warming world. The rise in sea level will create a profound shift in coastal flooding by causing tide and storm surge heights to increase and reach further inland, making coastal communities that are already experiencing increased frequency and intensity of coastal flooding more vulnerable to widespread damage. This presentation will review the processes on Earth responsible for sea level elevation changes and what the consequences will be for our coastal communities over the next 30 years, and what the consequences could be through the end of the century.
April showers bring July harmful algal blooms (HAB) in New Jersey’s largest coastal lake. A Monmouth University-led study published in the journal Urban Naturalist finds that Deal Lake is locked in a seasonal cycle that sees the system loaded with nutrients in the cold winter and early spring months, fueling bursts of cyanobacteria growth in the summer and early fall.
Endowed Professor in Marine Science Jason Adolf, the study’s lead author, likened HAB events to baking a cake, with a recipe requiring a few key ingredients: nitrogen, phosphorous, sunlight and warm water temperatures. The researchers found that during the cold months, stormwater runoff stocks the lake with nitrogen contained in materials such as lawn soils, fertilizers and road salts. As the waters heat up, the HAB organisms feast on the nitrogen and begin to balloon in number, clouding up the water and changing its chemistry. This in turn triggers a release of phosphorous stored in sediments along the lake bottom.
A view of Deal Lake in Asbury Park.
According to Adolf, nitrogen tends to be consumed somewhat quickly, leaving HABs to depend on heavy rainfalls to recharge the lake in order to sustain themselves. However, he noted that phosphorous does not break down as easy, and Deal Lake likely has a heavy supply of it locked within its floor throughout the year.
Like other coastal water bodies in Monmouth County, Deal Lake has seen heavy residential and commercial development along its waterfront and tributaries through the years, reducing natural buffers that would otherwise stop runoff from entering the system. Local sewer systems also funnel unfiltered stormwater straight from the streets into the lake. With a total surface area of 155 acres, Deal Lake borders seven municipalities with a combined population of over 70,000 – a number which swells during summer tourism season. It once flowed freely into the Atlantic Ocean between Asbury Park and Allenhurst, but today is connected via a flume gate that can be manually opened and closed to regulate water levels and allow for fish migrations in and out of the lake.
The study centered on 2017 and 2018 data collected by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and experiments conducted on water samples taken at that time by Adolf and Monmouth students. Monmouth continues to monitor Deal Lake regularly through its leadership of the Coastal Lakes Observing Network (CLONet) and other research efforts.
A comparison of the modern data and that collected through a 1978 NJDEP study indicate the system has experienced significant changes. Average Deal Lake temperatures reached 84.2 degrees in July of 2017 and 82-84 degrees in July-August of 2018, versus 66.6 and 68.9 degrees reported in July and August of 1978. The authors raise two possible factors behind the rise in water temperatures: warming air temperatures in New Jersey and infilling from sediment runoff that’s left the lake shallower and easier to warm.
Deal Lake at Colonial Terrace golf course in Ocean Township.
“The challenges for Deal Lake could become more serious as climate change advances, bringing warmer waters that are more hospitable to HABs,” Adolf said. “Communities along the lake should focus on targeted watershed improvements, including the restoration of wetlands and natural features around waterfront areas, to control seasonal nutrient loading from stormwater runoff. They should also consider dredging to reduce the phosphorous locked in the lake bottom in the winter and bring the body closer to its historic depths.”
The issue of HABs in New Jersey has gained attention in recent years due to lengthy closures at summer tourist destinations such as Lake Hopatcong and Greenwood Lake that impacted their local economies. The toxins present in HAB events can make humans and pets sick upon contact, cause mass fish kills, and threaten water supplies. They are characterized by green slicks that can resemble spilled paint and foul odors.
The study, “Nitrogen-Limited Cyanobacterial Harmful Algal Blooms in Deal Lake, New Jersey,” was co-authored by Katie Saldutti of the Rutgers University Department of Coastal Science; Erin Conlon of the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute; and Eric Ernst, Bill Heddendorf, Sheri Shifren and Robert Schuster of the NJDEP Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring.
By Tony MacDonald, Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute Director
MacDonald with (l-r) Acadia University President Peter Ricketts andCenter for Coastal Studies Senior Policy Advisor Richard Delaney at COP27.
The ocean community has come a long way from the 2015 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21), when we were fighting to get the important role of oceans in climate called out in the preamble of the conference declaration, and ocean events organized by the late Dr. Biliana Cicin-Sain and others were relegated to a venue outside of the diplomatic zone. In November at COP27 in Egypt, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography joined with other oceanographic partners and policy and science leaders from around the globe at the first-ever Ocean Pavilion in the so-called Blue Zone, where diplomatic representatives and official observer groups meet.
The Urban Coast Institute (UCI) secured official observer status at COP26 in 2021. When I arrived on site on Nov. 11, I was pleased to find the Ocean Pavilion right around the corner from the U.S. Pavilion, where President Biden’s in-person address to the conference was being streamed live.
To open the conference, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, reflecting the increasingly dire predictions of the latest scientific reports (i.e. the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report) and urgent calls for more aggressive action to reduce carbon emissions in order the meet the COP21 agreement’s target of limiting a global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, set an ominous tone, declaring, “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” Two weeks later when the parties adopted their final declaration, the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, most commenters felt that despite progress in a few areas they had fallen well short of meeting this.
The main areas of focus were the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to keep with the 1.5-degree target; support for adaptation for impacts that are already “baked” into the climate; and simplifying and clarifying access to international finance mechanisms, and the establishment of something called a “loss and damage” fund. It was hard for delegates not to look over their shoulder to the war in Ukraine, political instability at home, and volatile energy prices as they entered into negotiation.
Although in the end it was agreed to maintain the Paris agreement’s 1.5 C target through “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global GHG emissions” and rapid transition to renewable energy, that ignores the reality that the aggregated effect of parties’ implementation plans and mitigation pledges through what are called National Determined Contributions (NDC) currently fall far short of what is needed. They rejected calls from many nations for the phase-out of subsidies and phase-down of all fossil fuels. The final decision defaulted to the somewhat mealy-mouthed commitment to the phase-down of “unabated coal power” and the phase-out of “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies … in line with national circumstances.” It wouldn’t take much of a lawyer to drive a carbon-spewing truck through these requirements.
It is important to recognize, however, that it isn’t necessary to have binding international agreements to drive action at the state and local levels, where there is a growing consensus that more aggressive carbon reduction actions are necessary. I participated in two panels at COP27 which featured innovative actions to reduce carbon and contribute to more aggressive NDCs. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) provided opening remarks for the first session at the Ocean Pavilion (see video above). The session highlighted policy innovations at the ocean-climate nexus to accelerate decarbonization and improve the blue economy, including green shipping, local fisheries practices and aquaculture in the Philippines, and ocean-based renewable energy. (Click here to view additional videos of Ocean Pavilion presentations.)
MacDonald discussed policy innovations at the ocean-climate nexus with fellow panelists (l-r) Ocean Conservancy Director of Climate Policy Anna-Marie Laura, Fish Forever Managing Director Rocky Sanchez Tirona, and Climate Works Foundation Carbon Dioxide Removal Program Manager Frances Wang.
The second panel, “Coordination and Collaboration towards Ocean Blue NDCs,” was hosted by the Global Ocean Forum, the Government of Fiji and several other international partners. The panel was kicked off by the ambassador and permanent representative of Fiji to the UN in New York and featured collaborative initiatives among various stakeholders from Africa, France, Canada and the U.S. which support the incorporation of ocean action to strengthen the NDCs. In each panel I highlighted work that the UCI and others are doing in the Mid-Atlantic to collaborate with state and federal government partners, stakeholders and scientists to support regional ocean planning, including responsible siting of offshore wind, sustainable marine navigation, as well as support for healthy ocean ecosystems.
In addition to the on-site Ocean Pavilion, the Global Ocean Forum organized the Virtual Ocean Pavilion to amplify what was happening at COP27 and bring voices to the table from around the world to showcase why the ocean matters in climate negotiations and to all life on our planet. All of that information is still available.
Although the final declaration restates the need for adaptation support for finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building for developing nations, it rejected demands for developing nations to double adaptation finance by 2025. Some progress was made in recognizing the importance of reforming international finance mechanisms, setting up a pathway for future negotiations, including the need to provide $100 billion per year to developing countries for the implementation of mitigation and adaptation ambitions. Several late nights and last-minute negotiations were needed to reach a breakthrough after many years of contentious negotiations to establish a “Loss and Damage” fund to support communities that have been most affected by climate change. However, in order to reach consensus, the hard work of how much, how to administer, and how to access finance through the fund was left to future negotiations.
In addition to being called out in the preamble of the final COP declaration (“the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including in forests, the ocean and the cryosphere, and the protection of biodiversity”), the importance of the oceans was noted in several other provisions, including the following:
The “importance of protecting, conserving and restoring nature and ecosystems … including through … marine ecosystems acting as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and by protecting biodiversity.”
Expanded commitment to UN-hosted “ocean and climate change dialogues.”
Encouraging parties to include “ocean-based action in their national climate goals.”
The need to fill “systematic observation gaps … for ocean, mountain, desert and polar regions and the cryosphere in order to improve understanding of climate change.”
In addition to serving as the venue for the diplomatic meetings and negotiation highlighted here, the COP functions as a hybrid trade show, uber-networking event, and platform for initiating and announcing other related actions and partnerships. The U.S. reiterated its commitment to climate-ocean solutions and the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, joined Norway and other nations in launching the “Green Shipping Challenge,” and joined the Global Offshore Wind Alliance (GOWA). France expressed its support for the prohibition of seabed exploitation.
Although some progress was made in bringing the oceans into the climate negotiations, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to take a comprehensive and holistic approach to ocean conservation and sustainable use, including biodiversity, seabed mining, plastics, and governance of the high seas beyond national jurisdictions. For example, over the past two weeks, the US has been meeting with other nations in Montreal for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and negotiations of a post-2020 global framework for biodiversity. It remains to be seen whether the CBD will take actions necessary to maintain and restore the health of our global ocean, and ensure it continues to regulate the climate system.
A recently finalized articulation agreement between institutions will ease the pathway for Monmouth University undergraduate students interested in pursuing master of science (M.S.) or professional science master’s (P.S.M.) degrees through Stockton University’s Coastal Zone Management Program.
Under the framework, Stockton, located in Galloway Township, New Jersey, will admit up to five Monmouth students each year who are on track to graduate with a bachelor of science (B.S.) degree through the Marine and Environmental Biology and Policy (MEBP) Program. The application fee for students will be waived.
The dean of the Monmouth University School of Science and chair of the Department of Biology will interview and recommend students for matriculation into the Stockton program during their junior year. Stockton will officially inform successful applicants at the end of that year.
According to the Stockton M.S./P.S.M. in coastal zone management website, the purpose of the graduate degree program is “to develop the holistic knowledge and skills necessary to navigate the complexities of managing human interactions within a highly dynamic coastal environment, and to analyze the natural, social, legal, economic and institutional processes for integrated coastal zone management and sustainable development.”
The five-year agreement will take effect on July 1, 2023, and could be extended at a later date.
For more information, contact Monmouth University School of Science Assistant Dean John Tiedemann at jtiedema@monmouth.edu.
If you consider the beach your happy place, there’s a growing body of evidence showing you’re right.
Monmouth University Associate Professor Megan Delaney, of the Department of Professional Counseling, has developed a course on ecotherapy, which focuses on contact with nature as a method or element of counseling. According to Delaney, studies have indicated that regular exposure to the environment can reduce stress, obesity, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, childhood anxiety, and carry other mental and physical health benefits.
“The research shows that we now spend 93 percent of our time indoors,” Delaney said. “At its core, ecotherapy is about reconnecting with nature. We have lived in harmony with the natural world for so long; it wasn’t until recently that we stopped, and look at the destruction that we’re doing to it.”
Delaney’s course, Ecotherapy: Counseling with Nature (PC502), seeks to strengthen the rapport between her students and nature so they may pass it on to their clients when they become counselors. The graduate-level course is highly immersive, with regular activities in outdoor settings throughout the Jersey Shore area. On any given day, students may go surfing, canoeing, camping, gardening or take a goat yoga class. Delaney typically assigns a reading or video viewing related to the activity in advance, then provides a series of prompts for the students to discuss and respond to in their journals while on the scene.
Students are also tasked to take on a semester-long reciprocity project that helps the environment or nature, such as cleaning up beaches or working with animals. She said the assignment is meant to strengthen their bonds with the earth while serving as a model of a healthy relationship, in that you can’t just take from it, but must give back to it.
Water Connections
Recently, Urban Coast Institute (UCI) Marine Scientist Jim Nickels took the class for a cruise along the Sandy Hook Bay and Shrewsbury River aboard the R/V Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe. The group viewed a TED Talk by “Blue Mind” author Wallace Matthews beforehand and spoke aboard the vessel about people’s connections to water. Delaney said the experience was valuable to the students, many of whom had never seen the area they live in from offshore.
Professor Delaney and UCI Marine Scientist Jim Nickels in the wheelhouse of the R/V Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe.
Delaney said ecotherapy and the theory behind it, ecopsychology, first emerged in the 1960s as psychologists and scientists began to probe the impact of humans’ growing disconnect from the natural world. However, she noted that living in harmony with nature has long been central to Indigenous cultures, so in ways the practice has been appropriated from them. For her part, Delaney now conducts “walk and talk” therapy and no longer practices in an office.
The water holds a prominent place in ecotherapy. Therapists are now conducting sessions with clients while on the water surfing and paddleboarding, and Delaney recently reviewed a study about the benefits of fly-fishing while practicing.
“One of the big themes that I saw coming out of it was the connection to water — that people felt good being near it, or they felt alive or part of the earth when they’re around or interacting with blue spaces,” she said.
A Personal Path to Practice
She traces her own start in the field back to the love she developed for the outdoors during childhood camping trips with her family. As a college student, she took off a semester and spent three months in an Outdoor Leadership School course in Kenya, which opened her eyes to the world of outdoor education.
Professor Delaney leads a class aboard the R/V Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe.
After graduating she moved to Utah and worked for a program that conducted wilderness therapy with juvenile detention centers. Youths were taken for 60-day camping trips as part of their rehabilitation, which she said affected an “incredible transformation” in them.
“The problem was, there wasn’t a great transition,” she said. “The students would learn how to be in nature and then move back into their other environment, and what was missing was that piece of, how do we apply what we learned? How can we survive in a toxic environment having learned what we did to survive in the natural world?”
She later returned to the East Coast and was working in a corporate job in New York City during the 9/11 attacks, a moment that prompted her to re-examine her career path. Delaney would return to school to study counseling and for the first time took a course in ecopsychology. She felt an instant connection to the material, which she felt expressed feelings and intuitions that she had long held but never knew how to articulate.
Ecotherapy at Monmouth
In Monmouth, she found an institution that was enthusiastic and open to her developing the course and leading the University’s ecotherapy specialization. Today, her course fills up within hours and has a long waiting list.
“I get calls from around the country because there are very few ecotherapy programs and we’re the only ones that have a specialization, so people are coming here for that,” Delaney said.
Taking advantage of all the peak Jersey Shore outdoor tourism season has to offer, Delaney also taught an Adventure-Based Ecotherapy (PC504) course over the summer. Based upon the tenets of ecotherapy, the class explored adventure-based counseling, a type of experiential therapy that uses challenging adventure activities to aid the therapeutic healing process. The class was conducted outside and included experiences such as ropes courses, rock-climbing, surfing and an immersive overnight outdoor expedition.
Delaney has secured multiple faculty enrichment grants through the UCI’s Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe Scholars Program to conduct research on ecotherapy with the support of student assistants. She worked with Professor Kimberly Callas on a qualitative study of how students responded to Discovering the Ecological Self, in which Monmouth students and faculty provide lessons to local youths on nature and they produce artwork based on the experience. A second study looked at graduates’ experiences in ecotherapy and how it shaped their identity as counselors. And over the summer, she conducted interviews with colleagues’ clients to determine how ecotherapy impacted them. Every student who worked on the projects with her has graduated and is now doing ecotherapy work, she said.
The isolation brought on by the pandemic has only fueled interest in ecotherapy, Delaney observed. The steady stream of alarming news about climate change and the state of the environment has also heightened anxiety, not only among the general public, but its researchers.
“I find that when I’m in conversations with scientists, especially climate scientists and environmentalists, that they’re a really stressed-out bunch of people,” she said. “I think that some of that is the conscious and unconscious understanding that what they’re studying is dying. They’re the first responders to the climate crisis in a lot of ways.”
Now entering its fifth year, the Coastal Lakes Observing Network (CLONet) has shifted its attention from solely collecting data on the health of Monmouth County waterbodies to tapping that information for restoring them.
Endowed Professor of Marine Science Jason Adolf measures Lake Takanassee’s clarity with a Secchi disc.
Through CLONet, Monmouth University School of Science and Urban Coast Institute (UCI) staff and students partner with municipalities and community groups to sample coastal lakes for temperature, salinity, clarity, dissolved oxygen, and phycocyanin levels – an important indicator of harmful algal blooms – and file their readings to an online database for analysis. To date, CLONet members have collected over 1,300 samples from Deal Lake, Fletcher Lake, Lake Como, Lake Takanassee, Shadow Lake, Silver Lake, Spring Lake, Sunset Lake, Sylvan Lake, Wesley Lake and Wreck Pond. A team was also recently formed to sample Jackson Woods Pond in Long Branch.
The citizen scientists and researchers gathered at Monmouth University’s Great Hall Auditorium on Nov. 8 to share their experiences and learn what the data they collected in 2022 reveals about the lakes. The Fall 2022 Coastal Lakes Summit also focused on local remediation projects that could serve as models for other CLONet lakes.
The first four years of CLONet work has been supported by grants from the Jules L. Plangere, Jr. Family Foundation, but UCI Associate Director Tom Herrington said new funding streams could make it possible for communities to take the next steps toward addressing the lakes’ environmental issues. He said the data gathered through CLONet has positioned them to make a compelling case to funders on the need to improve the waters and strategies that would make a difference. He pledged that Monmouth will remain a partner in helping them navigate the process.
“Through two very important bills that were passed by Congress in the past year and a half, the Infrastructure Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, the federal government has set significant funding aside for ecosystem restoration and resilience,” Herrington said. “These funds will be available for the next five years, so we’re talking tens of millions of dollars that the federal government has in place right now to help communities like yours to restore the ecological functioning of the lakes. It’s an opportunity that we’ve set ourselves up to take advantage of.”
A 1930s postcard showing Sylvan Lake.
Offering a glimpse of what the future could look like for the lakes was Martin McHugh, regional manager for SubCo Eco-Contracting. McHugh delivered a presentation on his firm’s work with Avon-by-the-Sea to employ nature-based solutions for restoring Sylvan Lake, which forms a border between the borough and Bradley Beach. The project initially focused on restoring the waterline along one small portion of the lake to a more natural state, with native shrubs planted at its base to provide habitat, filter stormwater runoff and provide a barrier to geese.
“It was amazing how fast the plants took and the dramatic change in the shoreline there,” McHugh said. “While we were planting, the turtles, fish and birds were all trying to get in there. If you build it, they will come.”
Residents who were initially wary of having their lake views obstructed were won over upon seeing its success, McHugh said. The community chose to expand the project to other portions of the lake, with additional treatments including the installation of rock beds and shallow marsh areas where the pipes carry in stormwater to help slow it down and naturally treat it.
Videos of the presentations and related meeting materials can be found at the end of this article.
Updates: 2022 Data Revelations and Trends
Endowed Associate Professor of Marine Science Jason Adolf and Community Science Coordinator Erin Conlon also provided a rundown of what this year’s sampling data shows and new developments in the initiative. Among the highlights:
As shown in the chart above, the lakes where harmful algal blooms (HAB) are most frequently detected are Sunset Lake (20 percent of instances measured), Deal Lake (15 percent), Fletcher (10 percent) and Silver Lake (7 percent). Adolf noted that Fletcher had never had a HAB detected, but during this summer’s drought, there was one that was “off the charts – the highest we’ve seen in the four years since we’ve been working.” Wreck Pond, Sylvan Lake and Wesley Lake have not recorded a HAB event so far.
Adolf observed that “The HABiest areas just happened to be in Asbury Park,” musing “and no, I don’t think rock n’ roll causes HABs.” More likely, it’s a case of the lakes being centered in densely developed areas with few wetland buffers to absorb and treat runoff.
Adolf reported that a rigorous comparison between the data collected by citizen scientists and that collected by the trained scientists from Monmouth and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has proven its reliability. For example, he showed a chart illustrating a strong relationship between low Secchi depth (water clarity) readings taken by the volunteers and high phytoplankton/HAB biomass measurements recorded by the scientists, showing the former is an indicator of the latter.
Conlon announced that spreadsheets containing all of the CLONet data is now available for download on the CLONet Data Explorer. The web app offers easy options for users to compare the conditions of one lake to another, view averages of all lakes, and track trends over time.
The app’s CLONet Area Rainfall chart shows after a steep dip this summer, precipitation levels have rebounded to the annual average. Adolf noted that the wet spring and torrential rains carried by the remnants of Hurricane Ida offset the drought.
CLONet welcomes community members who would like to assist in monitoring their lakes to join the project. Monmouth staff and students can provide trainings and equipment to all interested. For more information, email Erin Conlon at econlon@monmouth.edu.
Abstracts are now being accepted for the June 2-3 Sustainability in Teaching and Research (STAR) Symposium exploring the core themes of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the member countries of the United Nations in 2015. The SDGs call for a global partnership to work toward securing a more just and sustainable future for all peoples and the planet.
Through this multidisciplinary symposium, as a higher education institution, Monmouth seeks to create a collaborative knowledge platform through exploring pedagogical and scholarly innovations and projects addressing and seeking solutions toward ending poverty and inequality, protecting the environment, and ensuring education, health, justice, peace, and prosperity for all. The event will be held in-person at Monmouth University, with virtual options available.
Abstracts are due Jan. 15 and should be limited to 250 words. Please feel free to share the call for abstracts with colleagues in your respective network and professional groups and associations. Details and further information about the event, call for abstracts, and submission process may be found on the symposium website. Further inquiries may be directed to starsymposium@monmouth.edu.
The Oct. 28 “Documenting and Interpreting Superstorm Sandy” virtual panel explored some of the ways the disaster is being documented for the historical record and interpreted for the public — adding to our understanding not just of Sandy as a historic event, but contributing to conversations on themes including coastal resilience, climate change, environmental justice, public/private partnerships, and emergency preparedness.
Panelists
Professor Karen Bright, MFA: Department of Art and Design, Monmouth University. In 2019, Professor Bright created an art exhibition titledJust Beachy/After Sandy. The exhibit, installed in the DiMattio Gallery in Monmouth University’s Rechnitz Hall, was a public participatory art installment that highlighted the effects of Sandy and shared the stories of residents who were impacted.
Molly Graham: Oral Historian, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Molly is the oral historian for NOAA’s Voices Oral History Archives, where she collects, preserves and curates oral histories documenting historical environmental change and its impacts on fisheries, oceans and coasts.
Abigail Perkiss, Ph.D.: Associate Professor of History, Kean University. Perkiss’s new book, Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey’s Forgotten Shore (Cornell University Press, 2022) documents the uneven recovery of Hurricane Sandy along New Jersey’s coastline. This book is an outgrowth of a longitudinal oral history project, developed with Kean undergraduates, to tell the story of the relief and recovery efforts after the storm along the Sandy Hook and Raritan bays.
Moderator: Melissa Ziobro, Specialist Professor of Public History, Monmouth University. Professor Ziobro is the project lead for Tracking Sandy: Monmouth County Remembers, a multi-year effort to document the impacts of Superstorm Sandy in Monmouth County, New Jersey, via oral history collection and exhibits.
The panel was one of four free events offered by Monmouth University to examine the disaster from a wide range of historic, economic and environmental perspectives. The others were:
The Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) and Department of History and Anthropology hosted the premier of the documentary film “The Jersey Storm: Sandy in Monmouth County” on Oct. 28 at the University’s Pollak Theatre. Directed by Adam Worth and produced by Monmouth County Clerk Christine Giordano Hanlon, “The Jersey Storm” features never-before-seen footage taken in the aftermath of Sandy and interviews with the Monmouth County officials, first responders, and residents who lived through it. The film chronicles Sandy and the fortitude of the local heroes who sprang into action in its wake.
Monmouth Specialist Professor of Public History Melissa Ziobro provided guidance on the project and UCI Associate Director Thomas Herrington appears in interviews.
The screening was one of four free events being offered by Monmouth University to examine the disaster from a wide range of historic, economic and environmental perspectives. The others were:
The Urban Coast Institute (UCI) hosted a special conversation Oct. 27 on lessons New Jersey has apparently learned and not learned since Hurricane Sandy struck a decade go. “To Build or Not to Build: That is the Question – Lessons We Haven’t Learned 10 Years After Superstorm” was moderated by UCI Director Tony MacDonald and featured an expert panel consisting of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette, Climate Central Senior Advisor Don Bain, and Federal Emergency Management Administration Region II Mitigation Division Director Michael Moriarty.
The speakers addressed how the state and communities should proceed given the new normal climate change, sea level rise, continued development and increased vulnerability in coastal areas, and the threat of more frequent and violent coastal storms. The panel talk was one of four events offered by Monmouth University examining the disaster from a range of historic, economic and environmental perspectives. The others were:
Shawn M. LaTourette was appointed by Gov. Philip Murphy the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in 2021. LaTourette is responsible for formulating statewide environmental policy while directing programs that protect public health and ensure the quality of New Jersey’s air, land, water, and natural and historic resources. A lawyer and policymaker with more than 20 years of experience in environmental protection, LaTourette began his career defending victims of toxic exposure, including organizing and advocating for the needs of vulnerable New Jersey communities whose drinking water was contaminated by petrochemicals. He first joined the DEP as the chief legal and regulatory policy adviser to then-commissioner Catherine McCabe in 2018 and was elevated to DEP chief of staff in 2019 and to deputy commissioner in 2020. Since 2019, he has been responsible for running DEP’s operations while formulating policy and regulatory reforms to advance Gov. Murphy’s environmental, climate change and clean energy priorities. His diverse background — in protecting vulnerable communities, facilitating the development of infrastructure and public works, managing business risk, promoting conservationist policies and advocating for equity — has made him a leading force in policy, program and project development, especially those at the complex juncture of economic development, energy and environmental protection.
Don Bain
Don Bain, P.E., is a climate engineer and expert on climate change, adaptation and sea level rise. Dedicated to building a bright future in a dramatically changing climate, he is a highly accomplished business executive and management consultant. He has managed hundreds of projects and has experience working in 21 countries. As a consulting partner at Ernst & Young, he advised Fortune 500 clients. He has international executive experience, has led several technology and professional services companies in the U.S. and Europe, and was a board member at Robin Hood Ventures. Don is an expert on the implications of sea level rise and has advised municipalities on adaptation, risk management, economics and finance. He is an expert in rigorous greenhouse gas accounting and management methods. Don is a licensed professional engineer.
Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty serves as mitigation director leading a team creating more resilient communities by reducing future losses to homes, businesses, public buildings and critical facilities from floods, earthquakes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. His Mitigation Team focuses on breaking the cycle of recurrent disaster damage with responsibilities for New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The team helps reduce loss of life and property while building capability with state, local and tribal partners through a variety of programs, including the identification, analysis and mapping of risks, support to state and local floodplain management, coordination of the National Flood Insurance Program, environmental planning and historic preservation compliance and management of a robust pre-disaster mitigation grants program and a hazard mitigation grants program of more than $3.5B for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for Hurricane Maria and more than $2 billion to New York and New Jersey for Hurricane Sandy.
