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Jersey City's Waterfront would undergo a massive makeover under a plan to build a $2 billion sea wall to protect the city from flooding.

(Jersey Journal file photo)

Jersey City is planning to embark on a $2 billion coastal defense plan along its eastern Waterfront, one that would that radically alter the city's so-called Gold Coast and, city officials hope, protect it from the kind of massive flooding it experienced during Hurricane Sandy.

The plan, in its initial stages, is to construct a nearly two-mile long sea wall that would create a "seal" from the city's border with Hoboken all the way south to Liberty State Park, according to an architectural firm that discussed the plan with the city Municipal Utilities Authority last night.

The city's existing Waterfront retaining walls are 10 feet above sea level. The proposed sea wall, or berm, would extend an additional eight feet.

The storm surge that led to flooding during Hurricane Sandy topped out at 14 feet. The 2012 superstorm left large swaths of Downtown and Country Village underwater, and resulted in tens of millions of dollars of damage to public and private property.

The sea wall would take as little as five years to complete and as long as 15, architect Dean Marchetto said. Similar projects are in the works to protect Hoboken and New York City.

The project would be a boon to developers. The sea wall would create new land all along the Waterfront, the most valuable property in the city.

Similar to Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan, created in the 1970s using fill from excavation at the World Trade Center site, the sea wall would be constructed about 200 feet east from the city's current Waterfront, and then the land would be filled in, creating an entirely new coastline.

Marchetto noted that Jersey City's current Waterfront was designed for industrial uses, not for the residential and commercial buildings that line the coast today.

"It's not the kind of design you do if you were building a waterfront for today's purposes," he said. "As a byproduct of protecting the city from sea level rising, you get a waterfront design that is designed for its intended purpose."

Philip Orton, a research assistant professor of ocean engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, said the city's plan is an innovative way to try to mitigate the effects of climate change, which experts say could lead to sea levels rising by up to two feet in the next 30 years.

Orton said the property values from the new land would help to pay for construction, while higher urban density can lower carbon dioxide emissions, which in 2012 accounted for about 82 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

"It's an idea with major benefits," he said. "It's a good idea to look at and study it."

Reclaiming natural resources by building a new coastline on an existing waterway and adding more residents so close to the water are potential negatives, Orton added.

The city's plan, which includes upgrades to the city's sewer and water systems to prevent flooding from rain events, is in its infancy stages. Last night, Marchetto presented MUA commissioners with four plans from engineering firms. The next step, he said, is to pick a firm to perform a study to determine how long the project would take, how much it would cost – the $2 billion figure is an estimate – and which state and federal agencies would have to give their OK.

Mayor Steve Fulop's office has been tight-lipped about the sea wall idea. Phone calls and emails to city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill seeking information about it in the last few weeks were not returned.

Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said he has "real concerns" about sea walls. Storm surges will get higher and higher, and water will "find a way" over the walls or around them, Tittel said.

"You cannot do this in a town-by-town approach. One town's wall will be the next town's bigger flood," he said, adding that removing fill from Liberty State Park to attract floodwaters there would be a better, cheaper way to prevent future flooding.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.