Manalapan property owners are working together to fix their failing seawalls. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Tim O’Meilia
While oceanfront residents scramble for permits to rebuild their collapsed seawalls, the Manalapan Town Commission is considering establishing seawall standards for both ocean and Intracoastal Waterway properties.
Commissioners voted unanimously to ask their longtime coastal engineering consultant, Taylor Engineering of Jacksonville, to give them the price for a three-phase proposal that would eventually lead to public hearings on specific seawall standards.
At the insistence of Commissioners David Cheifetz and John Murphy, town officials also will seek a proposal from a second engineering firm.
At first, the commission had hoped to quickly develop seawall standards and certification rules, but discussions with Commissioner Donald Brennan, the commission’s appointed representative, made clear that the process will be lengthy.
Although the state Department of Environmental Protection approves seawalls, no hard-and-fast standards exist. “The state agencies are concerned about the natural beach and marine life, not about protection of property values and building codes,” Brennan said.
Meanwhile, owners of four properties along the ocean where seawalls and upland property were damaged when Hurricane Sandy swept past off-shore in late October succeeded in obtaining emergency state permits to rebuild their walls. Four more permit applications are pending, according to state Department of Environmental Resources spokeswoman DeeAnn Miller.
Seawalls of at least 15 properties in the mile-long stretch between the old Vanderbilt estate and Chillingworth Curve sustained damage approaching $2 million. Entrepreneur David Lumia organized 11 of them into single group to obtain permits and rebuild more economically, although not all of them have applied yet.
Lumia flew architects, coastal engineers and construction officials to Tallahassee in his private jet to meet with state environmental officials. The group originally had a Dec. 28 deadline to obtain emergency permits to replace the walls, but state officials later extended the deadline until Jan. 27.
Later applications will take a more costly and longer 90-day path to get permits.
State officials agreed to allow the new seawalls to be a foot higher than previous ones, but they must be located in the same place, said Stuart Lepera, co-owner of Lands End Developers, which is performing work for many of the landowners.
Lumia and engineers are convinced that a single seawall will withstand nor’easters and other storms better than individually built structures.
In most cases, the storm surge topped the seawalls, saturating and adding weight to the land behind the walls and causing them to collapse seaward.
Other seawalls that were in disrepair and failed also contributed to the collapse of neighboring seawalls.
Although the new seawalls will be erected before the town can establish its own standards, Brennan said that “what is being constructed is what would probably be approved in the future.”
Most of the town’s oceanfront seawalls were built in the 1960s, and the town oversaw repairs in 1965 and 1985. But some homeowners objected to a $1.8 million repair bill in 2001, and in 2003, voters left seawall upkeep to the individual owners.
“The ones that failed were the ones Taylor Engineering identified back then, for the most part,” Brennan said.
Taylor will submit a cost estimate for inventorying the seawalls in town and their shape, an estimate on the costs of armoring the shoreline against storms of varying strength and an estimate on the cost of writing the seawall standards.
“This was an unprecedented nor’easter — given the full moon, maximum high tides, and tremendous wind from the northeast — that affected South Florida to New England,” Brennan said.
“This is a game-changer. It’s in everyone’s best interest to minimize the likelihood of future damage,” he said.
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