Lauren Carson/Terri Cortvriend: R.I. must face the challenge of coastal erosion
From ecoRI News (ecori.org)
You may have heard about the Charlestown, R.I., man who is suing the town of South Kingstown and one of its police officers over his arrest in June on a trespassing charge while he was collecting seaweed along a beach.
The charge was dismissed, but the act itself was, in part, intended to call attention to unresolved questions about shoreline access here in Rhode Island, a right enshrined in our state constitution. A 1982 Supreme Court ruling attempted to clarify the issue by saying the public’s right ends at the mean high-tide line, but since that line is a calculation of averages over an 18.6-year cycle, there’s no way for a beachgoer to identify it.
Further complicating matters is that the line will continually move inland as sea level rises, most of the time gradually, but at times heaving large chunks off dunes and other coastal features. With sea rise, property owners and members of the public whose shoreline access is constitutionally guaranteed will continue losing ground.
After Hurricane Sandy destroyed properties along the coasts of New York and New Jersey, there was an uptick in discussion about whether some particularly at-risk coastal properties should even be rebuilt. Many were, in fact, abandoned there, because increasingly violent weather events and rising seas have rendered them too much of a risk for repeated loss.
As much as we value the right of landowners, there may well be properties in our state, too, that are similarly unjustifiable risks for flooding, destruction, and even loss of life.
As the Ocean State, we should be much more proactive when it comes to resiliency along our shores. We should be exploring the actual risk to each coastal community and each property using current technology that models expected risks. We must continue to train our municipal planning and zoning boards on the risks of sea rise so they have the tools they need to make sound decisions that don’t jeopardize property investments and keep the shoreline open to the public under their constitutional rights.
There’s little doubt that, in general, homeowners are less than ideally prepared for flood risks, particularly the increasing risks associated with rising seas in the coming decades. Only about 15,000 Rhode Island properties in the flood zones carry flood insurance, and only those with mortgages are actually required to have it. Those with enough cash to buy a beach home without a mortgage aren’t. While they may have the means to risk property destruction in the event of a major disaster, are they putting public assets and people’s lives at risk?
The risk isn’t limited to private property. Doubtlessly, many state and municipal assets are also in areas that are already prone to flooding, or whose risk is increasing. Stewards of public resources have a responsibility to understand and defend those assets from potential damage, and must face the reality that the most prudent step might be to move them elsewhere.
Our state needs a more robust action plan for protecting public and private properties from the ever-increasing risk of coastal flooding, and that plan must include an accounting of where the high-tide line is, and how it’s projected to move.
The creation of this plan should include an audit of properties to determine what the real risks are, and it should also bring in real-estate professionals, insurers, and lenders, because they help determine the price of ownership of such properties, and should be sure that those prices accurately reflect the real cost of ownership, including potential destruction.
The Ocean State must face the fact that the more of our state is becoming part of the ocean with each passing year. Leaders and property owners must take much more concrete steps to predict the encroachment and protect our assets from it.
Rhode Island state Rep. Lauren Carson is a Democrat who represents District 75 in Newport. Rep. Terri Cortvriend is a Democrat who represents District 72 in Portsmouth and Middletown.
Welfare for the rich? In R.I., Feds probably will pay people to elevate coastal houses
By TIM FAULKNER for ecoRI News
Homes and business across the southern shore of Rhode Island will likely be offered money to elevate their houses and buildings to protect against sea-level rise and flooding from coastal storms.
In all, 341 structures between Westerly and Narragansett were identified by the Army Corps of Engineers for its fortification program. The study concluded that buying out or moving the buildings was too expensive to warrant funding.
“It’s not cheap to pick up a house and move it,” said Christopher Hatfield, project manager for the Army Corps office in Concord, Mass.
Grover Fugate, executive director of the Rhode Island Coastal Management Council (CRMC), said the Army Corps estimates on sea-level rise are too conservative and therefore wants more buildings to qualify for the adaptation program.
“We believe there could be more houses eligible for that project,” Fugate said.
The Army Corps estimates that sea level will rise 4.44 inches in the next 50 years. Fugate defers to the more recent estimates by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of 2 feet by 2050 and up to 7 feet by 2100.
Hatfield said time constraints of about 18 months prevented the study from using more recent data on sea-level rise.
“We went with what we had and did the best modeling we could and that’s what your seeing in the report,” Hatfield said.
Fugate said the project is nonetheless warranted because, “it will obviously improve the survivability of those structures ... it will reduce their flood insurance.”
Flood insurance rates, he said, are expected to rise significantly, as the federal program reduces its subsidies. Fugate said he has been working with Gov. Gina Raimondo to help lower local flood-insurance costs in the state.
The public is being asked to provide feedback on the program through Nov. 21. Property owners along the 28-mile stretch of shoreline must reach out to the Army Corps to find out if they own one of the targeted buildings. If so, and the program is approved, the Army Corps will offer to pay 65 percent of the cost to elevate the home or building. The property owner must pay the remaining 35 percent. Participation is voluntary. Fugate said the state may offer no-interest or low-interest loans to help property owners pay their share.
Most of the targeted Rhode Island structures are homes. Depending on the location, the building will be elevated between 12 and 18 feet. An additional 46 at-risk buildings, mostly commercial structures, aren't suited for elevation but will be eligible for other flood-protection measures, according to the Army Corps. Tide walls and flood gates were considered for parts of Westerly and Narragansett, but were deemed too costly.
The CRMC was one of 15 Rhode Island agencies and environmental groups to coordinate with the Army Corps on the study. The study’s $800,000 cost was funded through the federal Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 for Hurricane Sandy impacts. A more detailed study from the Army Corps will examine other issues such as what happens to the septic systems of the homes being elevated, according to CRMC.
The Army Corps examined 4,000 properties, valued at $600 million, along the shoreline in Washington County. The cost to elevate the 341 structures is estimated at $58 million.
The large-scale coastal threat adaptation program is one of the first of its kind in the country. Similar studies are underway in Virginia and Maryland. Some 2,500 homes affected by Hurricane Katrina are undergoing similar construction projects.
Buildings on Narragansett Bay may also be considered for a future project, but Hatfield said the result might be different because the southern region has a higher risk of erosion from storms and sea-level rise.
“It doesn’t mean we’ll end up with the same recommendations," he said. "These communities are very different than those along the south coast."
Unless there is public demand, there are no plans for hearings on the proposal. Any feedback or questions should go to Christopher Hatfield, of the Army Corps New England District, via e-mail at cenae-ep@usace.army.mil or by calling 978-318-8520.
Robert Whitcomb: Transportation and other news
Excerpted from the Sept. 9 Digital Diary column in GoLocalProv.
Terrific transportation improvements in Boston in the last 20 years because of the Big Dig and the creation of the South Station intermodal transportation complex have helped make Greater Boston richer. A key element has been the expansion and uniting of train and bus service at South Station. (Linking that facility with North Station via a direct MBTA train line would help expand the progress.)
Yes, these projects are expensive, but, as with the improvements in subway service in New York under Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, the economic benefits of more efficient and pleasant transportation are impressive.
Thus kudos to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation for working to create a sort of mini-version of the South Station public-transportation center in and around Providence’s Amtrak/MBTA station. The few bad things that happened with the revival of much of downtown Providence starting in the ‘80s included moving the train station up the hill to across from the State House and what was then called the Bonanza Bus Terminal way north of downtown to a gritty, windswept, pedestrian-unfriendly area next to Route 95. Stupid moves for a city that wants to be walkable.
Well, the train station is stuck where it is but building a bus station complex right next to it would make public transportation a lot easier in Providence, which would boost its economy and quality of life. That a lot of younger adults avoid driving and the number of old people who can’t or won’t drive is rapidly increasing, mean that the numbers who want to use public transportation can only swell.
As part of all this, there should be very frequent nonstop RIPTA shuttle buses to and from the new intermodal center to Green Airport, barring a big expansion in MBTA train service there from the Providence train station.
The RIDOT’s project will help pullmore businesses and shoppers to Providence from a large swath of southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut.
Full speed ahead on this project.
xxx
In other transportation news: My wife and I were on Block Island for a (bravely scheduled) wedding on Labor Day weekend, though not for as long as we had hoped. While we were able to take in a big outdoor pre-wedding picnic on a spectacular heath from which you can often see Montauk Point, we had to leave hours before the wedding, scheduled for late Sunday afternoon, because the ferry folks told us that the last trip for the next few days would leave soon because of concerns about Post-Tropical Storm Hermine. As it turned out, the trip, while a bit bouncy at the start as we moved out of the harbor, was pleasant enough.
There were on board a few somewhat oafish morning beer drinkers – a tribe traditionally associated with Interstate Navigation Co.’s ferries, but fewer than I remember from our first trips on the service, way back in the late ‘70s. None threw up.
The trip reminded us of how dependent islanders are on the weather: However high tech they are they are, they must obey Mother Nature more than most people. While this can be inconvenient, it’s also edifying (teaching patience and respect for, and sometimes fear of, Mother Nature) and adds some drama to programmed lives.
September has the best weather of the year, except when it has the worst, during those rare but memorable visits from hurricanes. By the way, there’s something exciting about the sexy term “tropical storm’’ up here that gets people’s attention. Thus even though Hermine was a post-tropical storm as she dawdled south of New England in the first part of this week, the National Weather Service kept using the phrase “Tropical Storm Warning’’ for the New England coastal areas being affected.
That’s because after Hurricane Sandy, in 2012, became an extra-tropical storm some people ignored the warnings as she slammed into the Jersey Shore. So the NWS decided to keep the ominous if misleading word “tropical’’ this time around, though Hermine by any other name (such as “gale’’) would be as windy.
The weirdness of New Haven's Lincoln Oak
"Vigor Code,'' by JOE SLOMBA, in the "Nothing Is Set in Stone: The Lincoln Oak and the New Haven Green'' show, at the New Haven Museum, though Nov. 2.
This is one of the strangest shows in a while.
As the museum puts it: The show combines ''contemporary art with archaeological analysis....''
"In October 2012, winds from Hurricane Sandy toppled the mighty oak — planted in 1909 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth — revealing human skeletal remains in the tree's exposed roots and creating an enigmatic narrative that captured the imagination of the entire country.''
"Artists to be featured in the exhibition were invited to use branches, limbs or pieces of the trunk of the Lincoln Oak to interpret the history of the tree and the discoveries yielded beneath it. Zeb Esselstyn, renowned for his own work in transforming fallen trees into artistic and functional furniture, distributed the wood to the artists in February 2014....''
"Jeff Slomba {above} paid tribute to the fallen Lincoln Oak through his amalgamation of oak branch, steel, 3-D printed PLA plastic and sparklers. Slomba mused that the tree's destruction by Hurricane Sandy 'revealed not only the tree's own vulnerability, but also the mortality and slippage from history's memory of those who came before us.'''
''The scientific component of the exhibition consists of the results of the on-going archaeological analysis of human remains recovered from the site. Photo panels describe the remains ... and how they were used to determine the gender and approximate ages of those whose remains were unearthed in October 2012, and offer hypotheses on health and disease issues of the interred. The contents of two time capsules found at the site of the fallen Lincoln Oak are also on display.''