Residents from 11 Burlington County municipalities will hear progress on the Climate Change-Related Hazard Vulnerability Assessment during a virtual public meeting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 30.
Residents from Burlington City, Burlington Township, Beverly, Cinnaminson, Delran, Edgewater Park, Florence, Palmyra, Riverside, Riverton, and Willingboro are welcome. The meeting is part of the Resilient NJ program designed to address climate change-related hazards, including increasing temperatures, drought, flooding, hurricanes and sea-level rise.
As part of the program, the county is partnering with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the 11 towns to assess climate change-related hazards within the Route 130 Corridor and make plans for improved resiliency to future floods and severe storms, said DEP spokesman David Levinsky.
A team from Dewberry Engineering was contracted by the department to lead the Route 130 Corridor Resiliency Project, in partnership with the county’s engineering and planning office. In April, the county and the DEP held three workshop sessions enabling attendees to point out particular areas on maps with severe flooding during storms.
The first session was on April 10, for the towns of Burlington City, Burlington Township and Florence, and the second was on April 22, to focus on the communities of Willingboro, Beverly and Edgewater Park. The April 24 session involved Cinnaminson Delran, Palmyra, Riverside and Riverton.
From the feedback and study, the engineering team is creating an assessment Climate Change-Related Hazard Vulnerability Assessment – a planning document – that will be incorporated into the master plans of the municipalities, Dewberry Engineering’s Keyana Aghamirzadeh explained in April.
The work was made possible with financial assistance from the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, as amended, administered by the Office for Coastal Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through the DEP, the Coastal Management Program and Resilient NJ. 
The assessments, data and actions in the plan – or document – do not represent the guidance or policy of NJDEP and do not replace the need for regulatory review by the appropriate local, state and federal agencies.Â
Completion of the assessment is projected for Sept. 30. Register for the July 30 meeting at https://bit.ly/ccrhva4. To learn more about the project visit https://co.burlington.nj.us/2119/Climate-Change-Assessment.
