the small Shore town of North Wildwood says it needs a beach replenishment program to protect its tourism industry but it's mayor Patrick Rosenello says New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection has left it hanging in fact Rosenello sued the state asking for the same support from the Army Corps of Engineers that many surrounding Shore towns have received and while that fight has played out in Court North Wildwoods taken matters into its own hands replenishing dunes and beach access points to keep the area open to the public during the summer months while the state in turn sued North Wildwood for conducting unauthorized work now in the throes of the summer season Brianna Vannozzi sat down with North Wildwood mayor Rosenello to discuss where the small town stands with its shifting sand so mayor get us up to speed here because there's been so much back and forth between your Administration and the state dep all of course over Beach replenishment and securing as you say your beaches where do things stand right now so unfortunately the city of North Wildwood has the distinction of being the only Oceanfront community in the state of New Jersey that has a need for a Shore protection project that is not currently in one with the Army Corps of Engineers and the njdep and this has been the case for going on 10 years now in that 10-year time period the city has spent over 30 million dollars of our local taxpayers money on different short protection and Beach nourishment projects in that same time period unfortunately there have been instances where acting in an emergency situation we've had to take action that the dep later issued notices of violations against us so we have pending notices of violations from the dep we have actually sued the dep to force them to put us into their Beach nourishment program and so there has been a lot of back and forth between the city and the njdep most recently the commissioner and I exchanged uh letters in the last week or so sort of laying out both sides positioned and quite frankly I think they were productive letters the commissioner and I in the last six months or so have spoken several times directly and I believe that he's trying his best to remedy this situation but of course you know there's a bureaucracy that we all have to deal with and it's going a lot slower than we would like to see and in these summer months we have real serious public safety concerns with the condition of our beach well what are those concerns and from what I understand the state's stance is that you know you all move forward with these projects without having that state approval a coastal storm came came up at any time it can cause significant damage you know to a dune system or a beach that you have to fix immediately especially especially during the summer season when you have tens of thousands of people the dep works on a regulatory timeline which I understand they have a regulatory timeline but that regulatory timeline is completely inconsistent with protecting the public from immediate hazards their turnaround on responses to requests for emergency authorizations is upwards of five days so can you imagine leaving a hazardous condition on a beach at the Jersey Shore in July for five days while you're waiting for the dep to respond it's not possible it's not practical the municipalities have primary responsibility for Public Safety the njdep has primary responsibility for short protection and Regulatory Affairs and I think both agencies have to respect the other agency's responsibilities and we're not getting that in some aspects from the njdep both organizations need to get on the same page prioritize Public Safety and work together to get this incredibly important resiliency and Shore protection project moving forward North Wildwood mayor Patrick Rosenello thanks so much for your time thank you [Music]