New Jersey environmental advocates are disappointed by today’s rollback of Resilient Environment and Landscapes (REAL) flood rules designed to lower costs and protect public safety in the face of increasingly severe weather.

Coming off a summer of serious flooding that caused millions of dollars of property damage for families and local businesses, advocates are calling on the Sherrill administration work quickly to implement updated rules that set a new national standard for storm protection, saving working families, local businesses and state and local governments countless millions in rebuilding costs, lowering flood insurance premiums and saving lives.

“Rolling back flood protection regulations puts the people of New Jersey directly in harm's way. Today, the Sherrill administration reinstated old flood regulations that use maps and standards that we know are wrong. This regulatory backsliding is at the request of big developers who have sowed disinformation about the REAL rules to the benefit of their own profit margins,” said Jennifer M. Coffey, Executive Director of the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions (ANJEC). “We urge Governor Sherrill to re-adopt strong flood protection regulations immediately to protect the lives and homes of New Jersey residents.”

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s own website explains that the REAL land resource protection rules “better support New Jersey communities, residents, and businesses in building their resilience to sea-level rise, extreme weather, chronic flooding, and other impacts of our changing climate. Almost two-thirds of New Jersey’s coastline is already at high or very high risk to coastal erosion and 98% of the coastline is projected at medium or very high risk to sea level rise. Over half a million acres of New Jersey land are highly vulnerable to coastal hazards.”

“Any delay in implementing the REAL rules endangers our preserved lands, including the delicate ecosystem within the one million acres of the Pinelands, particularly the 17-trillion-gallon Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer that provides drinking water for about one million people, irrigation for 200,000 acres of farmland, and habitat to dozens of endangered species. Flooding threatens the quality of this vital water supply,” said Michael Klein, director of government relations for the Pinelands Alliance.

“In a densely developed state surrounded by water, the REAL rules address two of our biggest issues: flood safety and affordability,” said Danielle McCulloch, Executive Director of the American Littoral Society. “Strong, evidence-based construction standards will help New Jerseyans build safer homes and communities today, rather than leaving families and taxpayers to pay for preventable flood damage tomorrow.”

Many of the roads and buildings in service today on New Jersey’s coast will likely be unusable by the year 2100 given the increasing flooding impacts of sea level rise. New Jersey is one of the states most impacted by climate change — with the fastest increase in warming temperatures and the third-highest number of flood insurance claims in the nation. From 1980 through 2024, there were 72 confirmed weather disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each that affected New Jersey, according to the National Center for Environmental Information. On average, New Jersey experiences a $1 billion weather event every 32 weeks — an astounding figure that serves as a clarion call for adopting science-based rules designed to lower recovery costs.

“Delaying the NJPACT REAL rule delays the protections New Jersey families, businesses, and communities need from worsening floods,” said Jim Waltman, Executive Director of The Watershed Institute. “These commonsense, science-based standards would ensure that new homes and critical facilities are built above current and projected flood levels, while stronger stormwater requirements help reduce the runoff that overwhelms neighborhoods and infrastructure. At a time when extreme storms and chronic flooding are becoming more frequent, New Jersey must move forward with rules that protect people, property, and the natural systems that make our communities more resilient.”

In addition to adopting building elevation requirements for new residential development, the REAL rules include new stormwater management requirements for redevelopment projects previously exempt, new nature-based solutions permitting designed to accelerate restoration projects and additional protections for wetlands.