in our Spotlight on Business Report one of the core pillars of Governor Murphy's Administration is its emphasis on addressing the impact of climate change including its goals of 100% clean energy and cutting greenhouse gas emissions but some say more could be done by lawmakers to help New Jersey prepare for its harmful effects specifically dedicating funds to support climate preparedness rebuild by design a group that led many post Sandy rebuild efforts is pushing the administration to create this dedicated funding source while also putting the issue in voters hands Ted Goldberg spoke to members of rebuild by Design about their efforts including how they led a similar successful campaign in New [Music] York hoboken's Northwest resiliency Park is hiding a big secret all the water from nearby blocks comes here and gets stored underneath the park and then gets pumped to the sewer system what looks like your garden variety Park is actually concealing underground storage for a million gallons of storm water much of the rain that would otherwise flood Hoboken stays in tanks until it's safe to be pumped into the sewer system Amy Chester says everything in this park is designed with resiliency in mind they're not a regular Park plant with regular um design of soil but they're actually kind of entrenched all the way deep in the bottom and this whole area can absorb more water she's the director of rebuild by Design the organization that Drew up the four resiliency parks in Hoboken one of which is still under construction they combined to hold more than 4 million gallons of storm water with gutters in places you wouldn't expect like a basketball court it's sunken on purpose so it could hold another foot and a half of water she'd love to see more of these Parks across New Jersey Chester says an early estimate has these Parks reducing flooding in Hoboken by 88% since they were built this park is a model not only for places in New Jersey that also struggle with flooding but it's actually a model worldwide the trouble is the price tag it cost more than $230 million to build these parks with more than 90% of that coming courtesy of the federal government there's actually not a way for other communities to replicate this park because funding isn't available what we're doing today is calling on the state of New Jersey and all of their Partners to work together to come up with a sustainable funding source so New Jersey community can build Parks like this that will help them too her group is calling for new ways to raise that kind of money including SE charges on Property and Casualty Insurance a law that would charge fossil fuel companies for climate damages and a Statewide environmental Bond measure rebuild by Design campaign for a similar Bond measure in New York and voters approved a four plus billion dollar Bond there two years ago as for the next project in New Jersey there's no shortage of candidates including the Edwin the fory National Wildlife Refuge in wtown the marshes are sinking they're eroding and so when we talk about the adaptations and Restorations we're we're really looking at look how bad it's getting we need to do something the marsh has eroded from where it was which was right in line with the development years you probably decades ago and so because the marsh really had nowhere to go the erosion you know the waves came in erosion occurred and it's been slowly been chewed back over the decades you can see how far the salt marsh used to extend into barnegate Bay protecting the birds that call this place home a giant Park probably isn't the answer here and it will take a while to figure out what is according to Virginia redig with us fish and wildlife the projects take years to work you have to start with an idea and then have a design there's a lot of studies that have to occur to ensure that we do and make the right choices for for the site it's on the order of 8 to 10 years and so with sea level rise accelerating uh we really don't have a decade per project uh we we really need to do these things quicker and faster the obstacles here are also slightly different than what Hoboken has to deal with we have erosion as you can imagine whether it's from storms boat wakes you know just kind of what you might expect to see and that you know a little bit of that is naturally naturally occurring and expected however um you couple that with sea level rise and also the marshes in New Jersey are subsiding as well the most common source of funding for resiliency projects is competitive grants from the federal government something people will have to hope for if the state is unable or unwilling to pay for NJ Spotlight news I'm Ted Goldberg [Music]