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| An Aug. 13 tidal surge flooded this Wickford parking lot, across the way from Gardner’s Wharf Seafood. (Frank Carini/ecoRINews) |
By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News
staff
WICKFORD — At normal high tide, the Biggest Little has
always become the Biggest Littler.
Now, during a moon tide — the highest of
high tides — parts of Rhode Island, such as the Brown Street municipal parking
lot in this historic village, routinely flood.
Rising seas and decades of poor
land-use management are conspiring to reshape Rhode Island and, unless you have gills,
the new state map will have much less appeal.
In fact, rising seas present myriad challenges for southern New
England, such as saltwater intrusion, accelerating erosion
and loss of critical tidal marshes. The Ocean State’s well-being is intimately
tied to its 420 miles of coastline and the flow of the tides.
The senator noted that the Newport tide gauge shows a 10-inch
sea-level rise since the 1930s, and the mean water temperature of Narragansett
Bay has increased 4 degrees.
Whitehouse’s concern about climate-change impacts kicked off an
Oct. 2 “resiliency walk” along Wickford Harbor. The 2-mile walk began and
ended in the Brown Street municipal parking lot, which the tour’s guide, Teresa Crean,
noted would be flooded had the event been scheduled during a moon tide.
“We’re standing in a key spot,” said the community planner and
coastal management extension specialist with the Coastal Resources Center and
Rhode Island Sea Grant. “During moon tides, this parking lot is closed because
of tidal inundation. Ducks would be floating here now.”
Instead, the large impervious surface was full of cars, plus
some 35 people concerned about the sea creeping closer to homes, businesses and
infrastructure. Crean told those gathered that the day’s tide was actually
a foot higher than had been predicted.
Change is here, and more is coming, but is southern New England
prepared to deal effectively with shifting sands, eroding coastlines,
disappearing coastal wetlands and crumbling infrastructure? The evidence
suggests this oceanfront region isn’t, despite an abundance of dust-gathering
studies, the creation of task forces and commissions, empty proclamations such as declaring
October “Salt Marsh Month” and bureaucratic bragging.
The ongoing transformation of southern New England’s coast is
unstoppable. But when it comes to addressing the rising tides, reality is
routinely ignored.
Elected officials, appointed officials, municipal planners, business
owners, voters and beachgoers should all be demanding, “What are we going
to do?” But far too few are even asking the question, and many seem content to
let future generations figure it out.
During this past election cycle, for example, the issue of
climate change in general and coastal erosion in particular were seldom
discussed seriously in any southern New England political race or by any one
campaign — a show of stunning ignorance in a region renowned for its beaches,
coastal attractions, and dense shoreline development, both commercial and
residential.
Smart, informed decisions are the best way to deal with the
complex problem that is climate-change impacts. Unfortunately, best decisions are
more difficult to make. The pushback against them is well funded and
loud.
Instead, a largely dysfunctional political system creates a
patchwork of regulations that are enforced on a whim, and recommends best
practices that are entirely voluntary. Elected leaders avoid examining
difficult questions, such as: When does it become more cost effective to
relocate vulnerable properties or retreat from the coast? They continue to
hesitate when it comes to making changes that actually matter.
Hard decisions
Despite seawall construction, beach renourishment and
other Band-Aid measures, Rhode Island’s shoreline has lost nearly 300 feet of
beach in the past 50 years. Nearly half of the Ocean State’s coastline is
unsuitable for hard-structure protections because of severe waves, flooding and
erosion, according to the state’s Coastal Resource Management Council (CRMC).
Seawalls and other hard structures also exacerbate erosion
at adjacent beaches and neighboring properties. Seawalls are vertical
structures often made of concrete or timber, and are driven into the ground to
deflect oncoming waves. But this deflected force has to go somewhere. It
typically accelerates erosion in front of the wall and/or to the sides.
Eventually, erosion occurs behind the wall and the structure is rendered
useless.
CRMC prohibits hard structures along Type 1 beaches, such
as the exposed southern shoreline in communities from Point Judith to Westerly. Matunuck, Misquamicut and
South Kingstown Town Beach, for instance, have lost some 400 feet of beach
combined in the past four decades.
In June, however, the state agency voted 5-4 to uphold a 2012
decision, in which it approved a 200-foot-long steel and concrete wall to save a
stretch of Matunuck Beach Road, which serves as the only road to many
summer homes and waterfront businesses in South Kingstown. Most of the wall
will be buried, and it will be capped with a sidewalk and a 3-foot cement wall.
The council’s majority said it had adequately considered
the seawall’s environmental impacts. One of the CRMC board members
who upheld the earlier ruling noted, “It’s the least-imperfect option of all
the imperfect options we have.”
Ocean Mist owner Kevin Finnegan had appealed the original
ruling, claiming the structure will damage his nearby property. His popular
nightclub and eatery sits over Matunuck Beach, which has eroded
significantly in recent decades. His building rests on wooden columns, and the
back of his business abuts the road, leaving Finnegan with no room to retreat
inland.
After that three-hour hearing in late June, the agency reminded
him that he and other shoreline property owners in the area will receive
notices that they must remove a wooden stockade-style fence they had installed
without authorization behind their buildings.
At some point very soon, highly vulnerable areas along the
southern New England coast will need to consider managed retreats, which allow the
shoreline to advance inward unimpeded. As the shore erodes, buildings and other
infrastructure would be either demolished or relocated inland.
In many situations attempting to stop erosion through structural
or non-structural solutions is a losing battle, according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The federal agency says
shoreline protection efforts and their ongoing maintenance are costly and
ultimately ineffective at preventing further erosion.
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| Despite armoring sections of the Wickford Harbor shoreline with riprap, the village is at risk of significant damage from 3 feet of sea-level rise. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News) |
A managed-retreat approach is typically less expensive than
structural stabilization projects that are often only temporary solutions,
especially in high-erosion areas, according to NOAA. This approach also
maintains natural shoreline dynamics and enables shoreline habitats to migrate
inland as the shoreline erodes to prevent loss of wetlands and other intertidal
areas.
Of course, as NOAA correctly notes, a managed-retreat response
to sea-level rise and coastal erosion can be politically difficult to
implement, especially where significant development has already occurred. Such
a move may also cause depreciation of shorefront property values.
Rising waters
By 2050, anticipated sea-level rise will vary greatly along the
95,000 miles of U.S. coastline, but the trend is that the tide is getting
higher and storm surges more powerful. Southern New England can already attest
to both.
On Thanksgiving Day six years ago, a home on Plum Island fell
into the ocean. A storm about 200 miles off the coast of Massachusetts
generated intense, unforgiving waves that pounded the small barrier island.
Five years later, eight more Plum Island houses were washed into the sea. Early
this year, a section of rock wall designed to protect another island home
didn’t. Powerful waves smashed the home’s deck into pieces.
The Army Corps of Engineers has issued a report noting that
erosion along the Plum Island shoreline is claiming an average of 13 feet of
sand annually. The report warns that another 26 homes will likely be lost by
2019.
Despite this knowledge and the fact the federal government opted
out of funding any improvement and protection of Plum Island beaches three
decades ago, the owners of the nine homes lost since 2008 were allowed to
rebuild.
During a recent workshop entitled “Rising to the Challenge:
Preparing for Sea Level Rise in Southern New England” the moderator asked a
room largely full of planners and municipal/state officials if their cities or
towns have plans to deal with sea-level rise? Few hands went up.
Most municipalities in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and
Connecticut are vastly unprepared for the long-term commitment needed to
address climate-change issues such as disaster recovery and disappearing
shoreline.
A two-day Southern New England American Planning Association conference held late last month at
the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence was designed to address such
issues. The regional conference, entitled “Planning for the Next Wave,”
featured dozens of workshops, including the one mentioned above, that focused
on community resiliency, sustainability, urbanism and ethics.
The conference’s keynote speaker, Scheri Fultineer,
head of the Rhode Island School of Design’s Department of Landscape
Architecture, told attendees, “Rising sea levels, changing storm patterns and
ecosystem degradation bring challenges to urban coastal regions that test
disciplinary boundaries between the professions traditionally charged with
planning for and designing our built environments.”
The impacts of climate change, especially along southern New
England shorelines and riverbanks, are already being felt and most certainly
will become more acute as the years pass.
Wickford and the Newport waterfront are at risk of
significant damage from 3 feet of sea-level rise. Coastal roads in Narragansett
and Jamestown are at risk of being underwater with a foot of sea-level rise.
A storm drain in the Watch Hill village of Westerly is flowing
backward, pumping seawater into a parking lot twice a day during high tide.
During heavy rains, storm drains are backing up at the approaches to two bridges
along the Barrington-Warren line. The flooding is of concern because the water
bogs down the main road that connects the towns.
Deborah Jones, the environmental planner for Groton, Conn.,
a city with 20 miles of coastline along Long Island Sound, said rising seas
mean more water, higher temperatures and stronger storms.
Jones, one of three
“Rising to the Challenge: Preparing for Sea Level Rise in Southern New England”
presenters, noted that Groton experiences more frequent flooding along its
coast and rivers. She said brooks overflow onto Route 1, the city’s main
east-west roadway.
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| Rates of beach erosion along the Westerly shoreline are increasing, prompting the need to relocate some buildings, even those ‘protected’ by a wall of boulders. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News) |
A few years ago, to deal with climate change and rising seas,
the well-meaning Groton Task Force on Climate Change and Sustainable Community
recommended, among other things, that the city provide bicycles for staff to
use to do inspections and that the city buy some available open space. No bikes
have been provided and no open space bought, according to Jones.
Task forces are well intentioned and studies are valuable tools,
but if their recommendations are ignored, what’s the point?
Let them build
Since the region’s shoreline is retreating, it won’t take a big
storm to severely damage structures along the coast, according to David Vallee, the
hydrologist-in-charge at the Northeast River Forecast Center of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Taunton, Mass.
He has noted that 2012 Superstorm Sandy devastated the
Rhode Island coast, leveling dunes and destroying property, and the
late-October storm wasn’t even a Category 3 or 4 hurricane. It was “just” a
severe storm with a “massive wave field” and 4.5-foot storm surge, he
said.
Sandy’s glancing blow caused an estimated $42 million in Rhode
Island recovery costs.
Global warming — science says decades of growing greenhouse-gas
emissions are largely responsible — is changing the jet stream, according to Vallee.
He has noted that the Northeast is losing its east-to-west flow of weather
systems, and there is now more north-to-south flows. The region’s weather is
wetter, and flooding events have increased.
More than 50 percent of Americans, some 164 million people, live in
coastal counties, and 1.2 million more are added annually, according to Hilary Kotoun,
social impact director for Newport-based Sailors for the Sea.
“This places heavy demands on the unique natural systems and resources
that make our coastal areas so attractive and productive,” she wrote in a
recent essay. “Coastal ecosystems in the United
States have long faced environmental struggles. It’s time we start preserving
and restoring these vital habitats.”
The acting director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Suzette Kimball,
has said, “Our nation’s coastlines are constantly changing landscapes that pose
unique management challenges.”
Southern New England, for the most part, hasn’t been up for the
challenge. Most cities and towns along its coast have failed to seriously
address the problem of retreating shorelines. Most inland communities have
failed to revamp land-use practices to better deal with increased flooding
caused by more frequent and intense storms.
Evacuation-route signs don’t address the real problem, and
development continues to be seen as a top job creator — often at the expense of
ecosystems that help reduce flooding and buffer us from storm surges. Permeable
pavers aren’t a substitute for lost natural areas.
But with state and local governments typically more concerned
about developers being overburdened with requests for permits and information,
it’s difficult to have meaningful conversations about actually reining in
development. In many instances, just the opposite is happening.
Last year, in Rhode Island alone, developers introduced 14 bills
seeking to ease building regulations. One of those bills, considered the
biggest offering for developers in 2013, was the controversial “slopes” bill,
which allows unbuildable sloped land to now be included in
determining buildable lot sizes.
The controversial measure passed in both the the House and
Senate, and Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed it into law, saying “he wanted
to give a leg up to developers.”
The House’s lead sponsor of the bill, Rep. Raymond Gallison Jr.,
D-Bristol, had this to say during a committee hearing, “There is a lot of
confusion surrounding this bill. It simply clarifies the building code for
building officials.” He then added, “I don’t know much about the intricacies of
the bill. I’d rather let the experts testify on them.”
His experts were, in fact, developers.
The bill was opposed by the Rhode Island chapter of the American
Planning Association, the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, the
Environmental Council of Rhode Island, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, the
Rhode Island Association of Conservation Commissions, Save The Bay, Clean
Water Action, the Sierra Club of Rhode Island, the Burrillville Land
Trust and the Cumberland Land Trust.
Eight town councils — Charlestown, Exeter, Little Compton,
Hopkinton, New Shoreham, North Kingstown, Richmond, South Kingstown and Tiverton —
adopted formal resolutions opposing the legislation.
The bill’s opponents cited concern that the legislation would
unleash building on dwindling open space. But less-regulated growth again
trumped climate reality.
A continued development-at-all-costs approach to economic growth
will inevitably diminish one of the region’s top economic drivers: its
coastline.
An argument certainly could be made that the answer to all three
questions is a resounding no.
Gambling with wetlands
Coastal wetlands are some of the most productive ecosystems on
the planet. They are largely responsible for southern New England’s valuable
commercial and recreational fisheries. These ecosystems purify water, help
reduce storm damage by absorbing wind and wave energy, and provide key wildlife
habitat.
Coastal wetlands also are highly susceptible to the impacts of a
changing climate. The region’s salt marshes are eroding at an accelerated rate,
and projections have shown that Rhode Island alone could lose half of its
existing coastal wetlands with 3 feet of sea-level rise.
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| Twin River Casino in Lincoln has some 12 acres of parking, which included paving over more than 2 acres of a field at the edge of a wetland without town or state consent. (Joanna Detz/ecoRI News) |
How are we protecting these valuable ecosystems from mankind’s
less-than-delicate touch? By thinking of them as isolated and independent
habitats, and by failing to properly protect them.
In February 2007, for example, two officials from the Rhode
Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) discovered a 308-space parking lot at
Twin River Casino in Lincoln, then under different ownership, during an
inspection for a separate 9.9-acre parking expansion. The 2.27-acre lot was
previously a grassy field on the outskirts of the property.
The parking project wasn’t in any plans the DEM had
seen, and it created a significant problem: runoff from the lot drained
directly into a nearby wetland. A mound of construction fill within a
restricted riverbank wetland area also was discovered during the site
inspection.
Despite no application ever being filed for the project with the
town or with any state agency, plus the illegal filling of a wetland area, the
gambling operation received nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
Twin River had a berm installed to divert runoff from
its unauthorized parking lot, and removed the haphazardly dumped fill pile. The
smaller parking lot remained, and the other 9.9 acres was given the OK to be
bulldozed in favor of 1,370 parking spots.
DEM said the 2.27-acre lot didn’t destroy any “critical”
habitat, but the agency tasked with managing the state’s natural resources did
note that runoff from the lot channeled into a small pond and wetland area that
feeds into Olney Pond, the popular recreation area with a public beach at
nearby Lincoln Woods.
No easy solutions
What can cities and towns do to adapt to these changing
conditions? How can state government help? What can property owners and
businesses do to protect themselves?
Some would argue the best way to start would be to move beyond
the here and now and acknowledge that change can’t be stopped by hardening the
shoreline and failing to respect Mother Nature’s design.
Outspoken environmental advocate Greg Gerritt has
called public spending to protect the shoreline “magical thinking.” The
Providence resident believes we should be spending less public money on adaptation
and instead be encouraging retreat from coastal areas. He, like others,
believes we can’t continue to allow rebuilding along the coast, and that we
should be creating much larger coastal ecological buffers.
But, like the issue of human population growth, the topic of
coastal retreat isn’t one society can easily talk about. In fact, the Ocean
Mist bar and nightclub is ground zero, at least in Rhode Island, for the
climate-change vs. property-rights policy struggle.
Nearby in South Kingstown, the owner of the remaining iconic
Browning cottage has dug in, and back, since Sandy’s visit two years ago. The
house was one of five large Queen Anne shingle-style summer homes built
hundreds of feet from the beach in 1900. Hurricanes in 1938 and 1954 wiped out
several of the large structures. Increasing beach erosion since the 1970s
prompted the owners to move remaining buildings 50 feet inland. Damage from
Sandy led to the demolition of two of the three remaining cottages.
Since the CRMC issued an emergency building permit in
2013, the last home has been pushed back 35 feet, a basement removed and the
home elevated atop 16-foot columns made of cement and steel. A 4,500-gallon
holding tank was installed in place of a septic system.
Rates of beach erosion are increasing, prompting the need to
relocate some buildings along the coast of South Kingstown and Westerly,
according to CRMC’s executive director, Grover Fugate.
Twenty-six-foot-tall seawalls would be needed to hold back rising
waters, he has said.
There is a growing need for public awareness and planning at all
levels of government to deal with climate change and the encroaching sea. The
time is now for the region’s elected officials to make difficult decisions,
even if they upset those who refuse to look past tomorrow.
This year during several General Assembly hearings to simply
enact a statewide ban on plastic shopping bags, lobbyists stormed the
Statehouse to scare lawmakers into falsely believing such a ban would bankrupt
businesses.
When it came to more significant issues, such as addressing
sea-level rise, lobbyists again descended on the Statehouse. A lobbyist for the
Rhode Island Association of Realtors told a committee that the cost of
adaptation is already crippling property owners. She conveniently failed to
mention that it’s also costing taxpayers.
“That’s the issue, the limited budgets (of property owners),”
she said, failing to understand that the cost, on all fronts, will only
continue to rise.
Important and complex social and economic issues will need to be
properly discussed if we want to deal effectively with the fact southern New
England’s coastline is shrinking. The best answers also will require sacrifice.
Editor’s note: The University of Rhode Island Graduate School of
Oceanography and the University of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Center are
holding a two-day symposium in early December at Salve Regina University to
educate coastal-area business owners and local decision-makers on how to reduce
the impacts of flooding on their businesses and their communities. For more
information, click here.