Sandy
Continues to Stir Action on Climate Change
By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI.org
News staff
As we arrive at the Oct. 29
anniversary of Hurricane Sandy approaches, so are efforts to get the public to
confront the impacts of climate change on Rhode Island and Narragansett Bay.
A slew of efforts from
state agencies, universities and environmental groups are drawing attention to
threatened natural resources and what can be done to protect them.
Saltwater marshes
Thanks to humans, 53
percent of Rhode Island’s saltwater marshes have disappeared in the past 200
years. Things look even worse for the next hundred. Maps being circulated by
the University of Rhode Island's Sea Grant program show that if sea levels
increases 3-6 feet by 2100, as predicted, most remaining marshes will be
submerged.
Marshes are critical
to public health and safety. They clean water, reduce storm damage, store
carbon dioxide and are a vital habitat in the overall ecosystem.
Manmade barriers, such as roads, homes and sea walls, make
matters worse by blocking marshes from retreating inland.
“Wetlands can’t jump
over asphalt,” said Pam Rubinoff of Rhode Island Sea Grant during a recent
workshop with environmental groups in Barrington.
In recent years,
another problem has hit marshes: persistent flooding. Higher tides make it
difficult for marshes to drain water back to the bay. This trapped water
creates pools that turn vegetation into muck and completely alter the natural
makeup of the marsh.
Save The Bay, Rhode
Island Sea Grant and the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) are
studying numerous areas that are struggling with flooded marshes and marsh
migration issues, including North Kingstown and Newport.
The results will to be
part of a bigger group effort: the Shoreline Special Area Management
Plan, or Beach SAMP.
Managed by the CRMC and still in its infancy, the Beach SAMP aims to find
solutions to these coastal problems through research, public forums and
eventual legislation.
Sensitive legal
questions are expected, especially related to property rights and which
entities have jurisdiction: local regulations, state laws or the CRMC. “That is
the wall you are up against,” said Cyndee Fuller, head of the Barrington Conservation
Commission.
There was consent
among officials from Barrington and East Providence that zoning boards
currently have little authority to manage wetlands development, as most
building requests are granted.
Barrington DPW director Alan Corvi said some
coastal residents are already asking the town to pay to channel water away from
their flooding homes.
Others at the meeting
asked if municipalities could be liable for issuing building permits in
flood-prone areas.
Flooding and rising
costs are also expected to increase inland, as higher sea levels prevent water
from draining out of freshwater wetlands. These backups stress aging and
already overflowing storm drains.
Fuller and others
agreed that the public perception of saltwater marshes needs to be improved.
“People need to think about their value," she said. "They can’t just
think of them as something they can’t build on."
Beaches
A recent public tour
of South Kingstown Town Beach raised many of the same issues, such as
public-private property rights and the tension between financial and
environmental interests. The South County beach is a microcosm of these issues.
The public beach pavilion that saw its boardwalk sheared off by Sandy has lost
about 250 feet of beachfront in the past 50 years.
Plans are underway to
delay the inevitable another 50 years by moving the pavilion back a 100 yards
from the eroding beach. A nearby beach club has already moved its clubhouse
inland. Not far down the the beach sits the Roy Carpenter summer cottage
community, which lost six cottages and a parking lot to Sandy. Cottages once
several rows back are now waterfront property, while 10 waterfront homes are
being moved to a back field behind 300 other homes.
Some of the solutions,
or at least delaying tactics, focus on getting roads and buildings out of the
way of the encroaching water, a process called abandonment. The CRMC prohibits
the construction of hardened barriers such as riprap and seawalls — structures
that often fail and increase erosion on nearby shores.
In the past, the state
has renourished beaches by building sandbars close to shore from sand and silt
taken from dredged channels. Sand also is brought in from nearby quarries. All
these options cost money. One revenue idea likely to be considered for the Beach
SAMP is a hotel or other tax to pay for beach maintenance.
“It’s something I’d
like to see. I know it’s been discussed,” said Janet Freedman, coastal
geologist for CRMC.
The famed Browning
Cottages were part of the recent tour Freedman led. Only one of the six
historic beach homes remain. One was torn down by Sandy. The owner of the last
home is staying, moving upward and inland — although little space remains on
the lot and insurance is no longer available.
The site is protected by a
historic designation, so the owner can hold out as long as possible, within the
rules. All septic must be stored in tanks. Only natural barriers made of
coconut fiber and sand can protect the home from strong waves and storm surges.
The last Browning
Cottage will hold on as long as the owner is willing to pay to fight the ocean.
Jim Bruckshaw, 53, has
been a summer resident at Roy Carpenter Beach his entire life. Before the wave
of more recent and more intense storms, the beach's cottages would rarely be
sold, and when they did it was usually between family members.
Now, there are
30 on the market. The nearby softball field floods so often that it has turned
to mud and is no longer usable. The basketball court is almost a pond.
The cost for those
that stay is getting worrisome, Bruchshaw said. “Most of it has to do with the
thought of losing everything. It’s kind of sad.”