Dune opponents invoke Zika fear

MARGATE, N.J. — This shoreline community has tried everything it can think of to prevent protective sand dunes from being built along the beach, invoking lost views, wrongly seized property rights and damaged tourism prospects.

Now that those big-picture issues have failed to kill the project, Margate is using a mosquito to make a questionable claim: that the dunes will help spread the Zika virus.

Six homeowners are suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Environmental Protection in a lawsuit due to be heard Tuesday, contending among other things that puddles or ponds that would collect behind the dunes would allow water to stand for days, providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

“This project will seriously degrade Margate’s beaches and jeopardize public health and safety in the process,” said Jordan Rand, an attorney for the homeowners.

But the kind of mosquito that spreads Zika isn’t a problem in New Jersey. In the U.S., the mosquito is concentrated in states along the Gulf Coast.

The only cases spread by local mosquitoes so far have been in Florida and Texas. And the argument has not been raised by any of the other Jersey Shore towns seeking to block the project.

Jon Miller, a coastal expert with Stevens Institute of Technology, doubts the drainage claims.

“I’d say it’s pretty unlikely,” he said. “Sand in and of itself has a very high capacity to drain. If you go to the beach and pour your bucket of water onto the sand, it drains almost immediately.”

A state judge ruled in April that the dune project does create “a drainage issue that needs to be resolved.”

Bob Martin, the state environmental protection commissioner, says New Jersey will address any drainage concerns that arise from the dunes.

Rand did not respond to a request for details on the lawsuit’s claim that drainage problems could help transmit the Zika virus.

The lawsuit offers no assertions to support that claim other than saying Zika is transmitted by mosquitoes and that mosquitoes breed in standing water. Rand would not say what, if any, evidence he plans to introduce at trial.

A contract for the project was recently awarded, and the state has condemned the private property it needs, leaving the latest lawsuit as potentially the last hope of opponents.

Zika isn’t a concern for most people. It causes only a mild illness, at worst, but can cause severe brain-related birth defects if women are infected during pregnancy.