Facing increasingly frequent flooding and rising sea levels, Atlantic City has rebuilt its century-old Baltic Avenue drainage canal.
The canal was a key structure long left in disrepair, but now more important than ever in the fight against climate change. The project aims to boost drainage, reduce chronic street flooding, as well as better protect the low-lying neighborhoods clustered around the city’s back bays.
“We’re seeing flooding in a lot of place that never used to flood,” said Jim Rutala, a city planner and principal at Rutala Associates. “The canal was never built for the kind of water we’re getting now. Rebuilding isn’t optional, it’s necessary.”
Originally constructed in 1912, the Baltic Avenue Canal manages stormwater coming into the city and prevents flooding within the nearby neighborhoods, draining a 775-acre area. Initially featuring wooden floodgates, the original system became inoperable by the 1960s due to vandalism and neglect.
In 2018, Atlantic City began a major $22 million restoration project to replace the old gates with modern stainless-steel sluice gates and build pump stations at each end. Work on the canal and pump stations will be complete by the end of the year; the next phase of the project includes adding three miles of bulkheads from the Atlantic City Expressway to the Black Horse Pike.
While funding for the canal upgrade is secure, recent cuts in federal aid and an effort by the Trump Administration to reorganize the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could jeopardize future mitigation projects in the city.
“Things are paralyzed right now from a resiliency standpoint,” said Rutala.
