“This is the last undeveloped stretch of shoreline in New Jersey,”
says Brian Unger. “I don’t think it needs conference centers, restau-
rants and all that stuff.” Cindy Zipf of Clean Ocean Action worries
about a public space becoming private, “even though the developers
say they won’t change a hair on the buildings’ chinny chin chins. The
pressure to make money will be huge, and we don’t want a multi-mil-
lion dollar mogul to repair buildings and turn the place into a
mini–Woods Hole.”
But while most local environmentalists would probably prefer for
the fort to remain wild and free, the buildings are crumbling rapidly
and need emergency intervention. With only $250,000 in annual fed-
eral funding, the Park Service estimates that within 5 years many of the
historic buildings at Fort Hancock “would likely deteriorate to a condi-
tion beyond repair.”
Given the development restrictions, what Wassel and his col-
leagues envision is not a nautically themed mall but an environmen-
tally oriented learning and conference center that would attract corpo-
rate clients interested in, among other things, the effects of global
warming on coastal America. Instead of Starbucks, there will be low-
key bed and breakfasts. It may open for business in 2008.
Wassel does not seem too concerned that flooding is a regular
headache at Fort Hancock, and that rising tides have forced the Park
Service to raise the roads 24 inches. “It’s an area that gets submerged,”
he admits, but it is unlikely that climate change looms large in the
Sandy Hook Partners’ planning.
Outside the office window, a flock of Atlantic brants, winter resi-
dents of New Jersey before their summer flight to the Arctic Circle,
were marching around the parade ground. The geese have no reason
to fear global warming, or shifting sands either. A wetter, wilder New
Jersey will probably be to their liking.
Janine Bloomfield’s “Hot Nights in the City” report for Environmental
Defense offers a grim scenario for New York in 2100: almost as hot as
Houston, swept by floods, wracked by infectious diseases and respira-
tory distress, and torn asunder at the coastline by erosion and frequent
nor’easter storms.
58 Jim Motavalli with Sherry Barnes