Using eminent domain to drive folks from flood zones

Watch Hill Harbor, on the coast of southern Rhode Island, which is very vulnerable to flooding, especially in hurricanes

— Photo by Stephg82988

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is commendably letting the Army Corps of Engineers tell localities to use the threat of eminent domain to get people to move away from increasingly flood-prone areas or else lose federal flood-mitigation money.

This is part of a shift toward  the Corps paying local governments to buy and demolish homes at clear risk of flooding. 

The Corps, with the agreement of the administration, realizes that building sea walls, levees and other protections, such as ordering that houses be put on stilts– for which the Corps pays two-thirds of the cost and localities and states the rest – is very expensive and often have to be repeated. Better for safety, and the taxpayers, that people be forced from these places, which are increasingly inappropriate for buildings because of global warming’s effects. But people naturally love being along the water, so such threats get much pushback.

The barrier beaches of South County would be  places where we could expect the Corps to get tough like this. Whatever Trump’s manmade-global-warming denials, it’s heartening that his administration is taking this unpopular but needed approach.

But what will they do about such urban flood-prone places as Boston’s Seaport District?

To read The Times’s story, please hit this link.