US Army Corps Holds Workshop of Back Bays Study

Press Release

As a follow up to Congressman Chris Smith's work last year to help municipalities alleviate flooding associated with coastal lakes, today the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) held the first Flood Risk Management Planning Workshop for the New Jersey Back Bays Flood Risk Management Feasibility Study.
The purpose of the workshop, attended by officials from numerous area towns and agencies, was to gather area planners and stakeholders and provide them a key opportunity to communicate their individual community problems, objectives, constraints and management measure strategies--all with the hope of being incorporated into the study design and future support.

The workshop was held at the Ocean County Community College in Toms River. Twelve Monmouth County lakes, prone to flooding and able to wreak havoc on communities in coastal towns, are included in the USACE study of New Jersey's Back Bays. Smith hosted a meeting in Neptune last fall with federal, state and local officials in his congressional district.

"Today's meetings was held in order to spotlight our coastal lakes and work to incorporate them into federal proposals for assistance and long-term risk abatement and storm protection strategies," said Smith, who in 2015 pressed the USACE to include all12 lakes in the study, which originally was only planned to include four tidally-connected lakes. Smith felt that though water bodies like Sylvan Lake and Fletcher Lake may not normally be tidally-connected, after Sandy all of the lakes and the ocean were flooded as a single body of water.

"It is very important to the coastal municipalities that the non-tidal lakes have been included in the study of how to help combat flooding," said Smith. "Superstorm Sandy highlighted the significant health and safety hazards that powerful coastal storms can wreak upon homes and businesses, and on whole communities and public property. We appreciate the Corps efforts to date to help, and will continue to work to bring federal support to the table to make these coastal lakes and our communities safer."

The New Jersey Back Bays study is the result of a larger, comprehensive, post-Sandy study called the North American Comprehensive Coastal (NAACS) Study, which Smith supported in testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water on March 13, 2013.

Smith, whose Fourth District includes some of Superstorm Sandy's hardest-hit coastal areas in Monmouth and Ocean counties, worked to include initial federal funding for Wreck Pond in the 2010 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. As far back as 2007, at Smith's request, U.S. Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) who was the chairman of the congressional committee that oversaw federal infrastructure projects, attended a meeting in New Jersey about Wreck Pond with officials and residents from Sea Girt, Spring Lake, Spring Lake Heights and Wall Township, as well as Army Corps representatives. Since then, Smith has worked continuously to help address the many issues surrounding the coastal lakes.

The coastal lakes in the study located in Smith's district include: Deal Lake Watershed, Ocean Township; Wesley Lake, Neptune; Fletcher Lake, Neptune/Bradley Beach; Sylvan Lake, Bradley Beach/Avon; Silver Lake, Avon/Belmar; Lake Como, Belmar/Lake Como/Spring Lake; the Spring Lake, which is located in the town of Spring Lake; Wreck Pond, Spring Lake/Spring Lake Hts./Sea Girt; Stockton Lake, Sea Girt/Manasquan; Glimmer Glass, Manasquan; Lake Louise, Point Pleasant Beach; Little Silver Lake, Point Pleasant Beach; Lake of the Lillies, Point Pleasant Beach, and; Twilight Lake, Bay Head.

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