North Wildwood sues New Jersey over collapse of $54M federal beach project

North Wildwood filed suit Wednesday against the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), saying it had failed in its duty to gain support of a large beach project from neighboring communities.

The DEP announced last week that a $54 million federal beach replenishment and dune building project to span the Wildwoods had collapsed after years of planning because Wildwood and Wildwood Crest withdrew their support.

With town pitted against town, a federal deadline from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to get all sides to sign off on the project came and went.

So the DEP said that the Hereford Inlet to Cape May Inlet Storm Risk Management Project for Five Mile Island had been officially suspended and that federal funds reserved for the project would be redirected.

The DEP blamed Wildwood and Wildwood Crest for backing out from what the state thought was a deal.

However, on Wednesday, North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello blamed the DEP and its commissioner, Shawn LaTourette, in a strongly worded letter put out roughly the same time as the suit was filed.

“It is a black mark on the record of Commissioner LaTourette, who has failed catastrophically in one of the most fundamental responsibilities of his office: protecting New Jersey’s coastline and its people,“ Rosenello wrote.

Rosenello and LaTourette have been at odds for years over the town’s own beach protection efforts. In the past, North Wildwood has sued the state over beach erosion projects.

“Make no mistake,” Rosenello wrote in the letter issued from his office, “this collapse rests squarely on the shoulders of the NJDEP leadership.”

The DEP declined to comment on the lawsuit or Rosenello’s letter.

Rosenello accused the DEP of not seriously considering proposed solutions to “the project’s obstacles.”

Wildwood Crest Mayor Don Cabrera said in a statement to The Inquirer last week after the deal collapsed that his community had requested revisions to the proposed plan without withdrawing from it and that “adjustments to the plan could’ve been made.”

However, LaTourette said Friday in his announcement of the deal’s collapse that time had run out to negotiate.

The Army Corps, which was to manage the project, had imposed an Aug. 30 deadline to either move ahead or terminate the project. LaTourette had still not been able to get all towns to agree by Nov. 7 when he suspended the project.

As a result, North Wildwood filed suit Wednesday in Superior Court in Cape May County seeking “substantial damages arising from the collapse and termination” of the beach project. The suit alleges that the DEP “breached its contractual obligations” by failing to get needed easements, enforce cooperation from all municipalities involved, and “allowing the project to languish … to the detriment of North Wildwood.”

The project was designed to address erosion on the barrier island known as Five Mile Beach, which contains North Wildwood, Wildwood, West Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, and Diamond Beach (part of Lower Township). All are separate municipalities in Cape May County.

Of those communities, North Wildwood has been hardest hit by erosion, even as Wildwood and Wildwood Crest have seen more sand washed onto their shoreline as the result of storms and surges — a phenomenon the state said is also problematic because it causes other issues.

The plan to address erosion began in 2017. It called for the Army Corps to pump 1.3 million cubic yards of sand from the ocean floor off Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, and Diamond Beach to create engineered dunes in those communities. It also would build engineered dunes and a protective berm in North Wildwood.

The federal government was to pay 65% of the cost and the state to pay 35%.

But after LaTourette thought he had a deal, Wildwood and Wildwood Crest later balked, saying their beaches are not suffering from erosion. The parties have not been able to come to an agreement.

North Wildwood says in its suit that the DEP could have enforced the plan. Now, the town says, it is out not only $29 million in “unreimbursed expenditures for emergency erosion mitigation,” but also the $54 million for the larger project.

“North Wildwood has endured profound and irreparable losses,” the lawsuit states, including “heightened vulnerability to flooding and storm damage and severe economic harm from diminished tourism revenue and declining property values in a community already battered by years of unchecked coastal erosion.”