well climate threats were top of mind for lawmakers today as Senate and assembly committees heard testimony on everything from Beach replenishment to climate resiliency but the topic that spurred the most passionate debate centered around the impact of sea level rise on development in coastal communities the Department of Environmental Protection is proposing new rules for development that's getting strong push back from the business Community Ted Goldberg was at the Joint Hearing in Tom's River where they argued the rules will push people away from the shore possible new rules from the DEP have sparked spirited debate about building and rebuilding the real represents a paradigm shift in how we think about development in flood prone areas this rule is really the first step in trying to force people to retreat from the Jersey Shore resilient environments and Landscapes or real is a draft rule that affects land use in flood prone areas Nick Angarone is the DEP's Chief resiliency officer and he gave a very quick recap of the thousand-page document at a joint hearing by the Senate and assembly environment committees in Tom's River there is no no build Zone that stems from from the regulations right if I'm going to vastly oversimplify you have to build higher and you have to recognize that You're vulnerable the panel included environmental experts who warned that rising sea levels and climate change mean we need to rethink how we develop on the coasts it's impractical at this point to imagine that the Jersey Shore is going to be abandoned but uh if we have large sea level rise uh it's obviously going to be very difficult to maintain the status quo the coast is part of who we are as new jerseyans to effectively adapt to the changing Coast we need to connect the knowledge we are building and developing about the future to what people care the most deeply about tourism in New Jersey generates over 49 billion in Revenue annually and 29 billion is attributed to the coastal counties pretty good for a small state part of the rules include that properties in flood prone areas must now be built 5 feet higher than previous regulations to accommodate sea level rise among other things there are several uh longtime loopholes that have uh kept the state from regulating development appropriately that are being that are being fixed you won't be able to develop in those areas that be will be Draconian requirements to even maintain or to improve your property the end result of all of this and the is quite clear in other documents they put out they want people to leave the Barrier Islands they want people to leave um good parts of the coast some in the business Community say these regulations are too onerous and would stifle development one of the issues is the 5 feet in projected sea level rise by 2100 what level of certainty do you have what level of probability from the statistical sense um in these projections there's a range of options and within that likely range we are looking at the the upper end of that likely range other debates at today's hearing included Beach replenishment which have helped beaches affected by erosion if we want to have wide beaches that are going to protect to protect infrastructure people support the tourism economy this is the most effective and economical way to handle our beaches it's a $50 billion industry the return on investment for Beach replenishments excellent It's a temporary solution um at best you get five years out of it uh as we've seen lately particularly in Monmouth County and the Wildwoods um sometimes that time frame is much shorter so you incur those expenses uh repeatedly Senator Bob Smith says the Committees will accept public comment for another two weeks so if you've got something to say about all this lawmakers say they're all ears in Tom's River I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news