A screenshot from the RPA report. Civic group finds insufficient preparation for rising sea levels

Sea levels are rising at an accelerated rate, threatening the economies and health of the region's coastal communities, but most governments aren't doing enough to prepare for the changes, a new report by the Regional Plan Association concludes.

The RPA, a 90-year-old organization, releases an exhaustive regional plan every generation or so and the next one is due out next year. The report released Tuesday, "Under Water: How Sea Level Rise Threatens the Tri-State Region," is a preamble of sorts to the major publication due out in 2017.


Most agree rising sea levels, the result of thermal expansion and melting polar ice caps, is a problem like no other the association or planning community have faced.

The report uses models by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey to map out projections over the next decades.

"The pace at which seas are rising is accelerating. Sea levels could rise around one foot as soon as the 2030s," the report states. "Three feet could occur as early as the 2080s. Six feet of sea level rise could come early in the next century."

Among the most imperiled areas in New Jersey are the Meadowlands region, Jersey City and Hoboken, and the barrier beach and back bay communities of the Jersey Shore. In New York City and Long Island, the critical areas are the Rockaways, Jamaica Bay, Coney Island, the East Shore of Staten Island and Long Island’s south shore.

Examples in the report grow more severe with each foot of projected sea level rise. At three feet, thousands of residents of the Meadowlands could be permanently flooded. At six feet, half of Hoboken could be displaced and parts of Newark will be permanently under water.

In New York City, a six-foot rise in sea level would displace about 200,000 residents. Most of the Rockaway peninsula would be under water and half of the population of Coney Island would be displaced, the report states.

"Taking into account the latest scientific findings on sea level rise and climate change, the study finds that many of the major resilience policies, plans and projects under development today fall short of adequately addressing the long term, existential threat of permanent flooding from sea level rise," the report states.

New York City, under both Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Mayor Bill de Blasio, is spending billions of dollars on planning and redesigning neighborhoods to prepare for rising sea levels.

Other local governments, though, too often address short-term flooding problems while ignoring the fact that within 50 to 100 years coastlines will be almost completely altered, the report stated.

"The reason why we haven't made more progress in preparing our country and the world for these problems is that the problems are just too big," said Seth Pinsky, an executive at RXR Realty who served as Bloomberg's director of a special initiative for rebuilding and resiliency.

Pinksy joined Dan Zarrilli, de Blasio's climate chief, and others on a panel Tuesday to discuss the report's findings.

"Government is the critical piece here and it's a little bit worrying the direction our government is going in," Pinsky said, referring to the election of Donald Trump.

But even pre-Trump, governments have been focusing too much on short-term fixes to flooding rather than the long-term reality that coastlines as we know them will likely not exist in 100 years, the report says.

"Current resilience approaches mainly focus on storm surge and do not adequately tackle the challenge of long term permanent flooding," the report states. "None of the projects currently pursue a regional approach."

While billions of dollars are being spent constructing flood walls and elevating homes, the RPA and others are working on the grim prospect of telling some communities that they should stop developing and consider moving to higher ground.

"We can develop engineering solutions, continually pumping more sand onto beaches or building higher berms and sea walls around communities and infrastructure, installing pumps to keep the water out," the report states. "We can learn to live with the water, elevating more structures and infrastructure and adjusting to a new life on less dry ground or we can phase out new development and retreat from at risk places over the coming decades, returning the land to nature."

To some extent that has already happened. New Jersey's Blue Acres program uses federal and state dollars to buy homes from residents in chronically flooded areas at pre-Sandy market rates. The state then tears down the homes and converts them into open space which serves as an added buffer to flooding.

But RPA is advocating for a comprehensive plan for the region to address the short and long-term threats.

Among the most important solutions cited is reducing carbon emissions to stay the worst effects of rising seas. Other actions include detailed planning for the short and long term. Planning should include returning as much coastal land as possible to nature to provide a buffer, the report states. Sea walls, levees and pumps are also short-term solutions.

RPA president Tom Wright said combating sea level rise should be atop every government agency's agenda.

"I still feel like there's a disconnect that we ought to confront here," Wright said. "What's going to take to get this embedded in the conversation?"

A full copy of the report can be read here: http://bit.ly/2g6itqE