A5991

An Act requiring the Department of Environmental Protection to develop Statewide flood monitoring dashboard and supplementing Title 40 of the Revised Statutes.

Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

1. a. No later than 12 months after the effective date of P.L. , c. (C. ), (pending before the Legislature this bill) the Department of Environmental Protection shall develop and publish on its Internet website, a publicly-accessible and searchable dashboard to track municipal flood risks in real time.

b. (1) The online flood dashboard shall include, but not be limited to, the following information:

(a) rainfall and precipitation levels;

(b) local river levels;

(c) total water level rise in waterways or flood zones, including surface water rise, sea level rise, river level rise, and sewer overflow, as relevant;

(d) storm and flood surge;

(e) drainage complaints;

(f) reported flood damage;

(g) current sewer and stormwater system capacity;

(h) history of municipal flooding incidents during the previous year; and

(i) any other features that the department determines to be necessary to establish a comprehensive dashboard system.

(2) During periods of active storms or flood risk, as determined by the National Weather Service, the department shall ensure the information on the dashboard is updated, at a minimum, on a weekly basis, using the most current information obtained by the department.

c. Counties and municipalities shall report to the department such information as the department determines necessary to operate the dashboard. The department shall establish a process, including the standardized digital formats required for reporting, for counties and municipalities to report data to the department pursuant to this section.

d. The department may apply for federal grant funds or any other federal assistance that may be available to support the establishment and maintenance of the dashboard.

2. Beginning one year after the dashboard has been made publicly available, the department shall annually review the dashboard, as well as data collection and reporting requirements, and shall take steps to standardize and consolidate those requirements for the purpose of: (1) reducing the administrative demand on municipalities; (2) updating and standardizing data reporting protocols; and (3) improving the utility of the reported data and the ability to share the data across systems, including, as appropriate, systems maintained by other State departments and agencies, county and local agencies, and federal authorities. The department's review shall include, but not be limited to:

(1) identifying and eliminating duplicative reporting;

(2) assessing the need to establish or change standardized formats, requirements, protocols, and systems for data reporting, which may require local governments to report data in machine-readable formats to facilitate the processing and analysis of reported data;

(3) assessing State information technology needs to support technology-enabled and data-driven regulatory flood risk monitoring;

(4) anticipating potential uses for the enhanced technologies and systems;

(5) enabling systems to readily accept and analyze additional data metrics;

(6) identifying opportunities to centralize and modernize State flood and stormwater infrastructure, processes, and analytic capabilities; and

(7) identifying federal funding to support flood data collection improvement.

3. The Department of Environmental Protection shall, in accordance with the "Administrative Procedure Act," P.L.1968, c.410 (C.52:14B-1 et seq.) adopt rules and regulations as necessary to implement this act.

4. This act shall take effect one year following the date of enactment except that the Commissioner of Environmental Protection may take any anticipatory administrative action in advance as shall be necessary for the implementation of this act.

STATEMENT

This bill requires that the Department of Environmental Protection (department) develop and establish on its Internet website a publicly accessible, searchable, and readily updated dashboard to track real-time rainfall, river levels, sewer capacity, and flood patterns at the municipal level.

The online dashboard created by the department would include, at a minimum, rainfall and precipitation levels, local river levels, total water level rise, storm and flood surge, drainage complaints, reported flood damage, current sewer and stormwater capacity, history of flooding, and any other features determined by the department to be necessary to establish a comprehensive dashboard system. The dashboard would be updated at least weekly during periods of active storm warnings. The bill would require municipal and county emergency offices to report information the department determines necessary to operate the dashboard.

Under the provisions of this bill, the department is required to annually review the dashboard, as well as reporting requirements imposed on each local government unit, take steps to standardize and consolidate reporting, and ensure that a comprehensive, system-wide scope of data is collected. This would include identifying and eliminating duplicative reporting; assessing the need to establish or change standardized formats, requirements, protocols, and systems for data reporting; assessing State information technology needs to support technology-enabled and data-driven regulatory flood risk monitoring; anticipating potential uses for the enhanced technologies and systems; enabling systems to readily accept and analyze additional data metrics; identifying opportunities to centralize and modernize State flood and stormwater infrastructure, processes, and analytic capabilities; and identifying available federal funding to support flood risk data collection improvement.