PROVIDENCE — Gov. Gina Raimondo has yet to outline plans for
addressing climate change, but so far, she appears to support the state climate
change council and the Resilient Rhode Island Act, passed last year
by the General Assembly.
Janet Coit, director of the Department of Environmental Management
(DEM) and chairwoman of the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4), has spoken with Raimondo
several times about climate change.
“She sees this issue as an economic issue, a very important economic issue for Rhode Island, not just because of some of the challenges it poses but also some of the opportunities that we have,” Coit said during a Feb. 11 meeting of the EC4.
ecoRI News has contacted the governor’s office several times to
request an interview with Raimondo in hopes of speaking with her about
climate-change impacts and other local environmental issues. Our requests have
been denied.
Four of Raimondo’s staffers visited the EC4’s first meeting of the
year and the first since the new governor took office. Deputy chief of staff
Eric Beane explained that the governor has grouped the state agencies into
portfolios overseen by a chief of staff and two deputies. Beane will work with
DEM, the Department of Health and the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency
(RIEMA).
Coit has met with Beane to discuss potential appointees to the
EC4’s yet-to-be-filled technical advisory board. The 13-member committee will
have five appointees chosen by the governor, plus four each appointed by the
House speaker and Senate president. There has been no word yet on the
nine-member science advisory board.
The EC4 has until the end of 2016 to come up with a plan for
cutting state greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. A contractor will be
hired to develop the emission-reduction plan. The EC4 must also establish
non-binding strategies for adapting to sea-level rise, severe weather, threats
to infrastructure, and impacts on public health, the economy and the
environment.
Coit reminded the EC4 that climate change is an immediate problem
for the state. She noted that the tide in Newport, and presumably much of
Narragansett Bay, is 10 inches higher since 1930. The state receives 10 more
inches per year of precipitation than it did in 1940.
She added that storms are more intense, coastal erosion and loss
of natural habitat are increasing, and marine life is changing. Warmer air
temperature has increased ozone levels and air pollution, creating public
health issues, she said.
“We’re experiencing climate change now,” Coit said. “And some of
the recent events we’re experiencing and the lessons learned are useful for us
to review.”
Rebuild
or retreat?
Rebuilding, rather than relocating, was the response in two case studies looked at by the EC4 about storm recovery in Rhode Island.
In Westerly, 29 beachfront businesses were rebuilt after
sustaining heavy damage from Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Only five altered their
building design to reduce the impact on the environment and make the structure
more adaptable to erosion and harsh coastal weather.
Lisa Konicki, executive director of the Greater Westerly-Pawcatuck
Area Chamber of Commerce, told the EC4 that most business owners were
determined to rebuild quickly after Sandy. But their headstrong strategy, she
said, might change after the next disaster.
“If it were to happen again, some of them won’t rebuild at all
next time,” Konicki said. “They just don’t have it in them physically,
financially, emotionally to go through that. It is a crisis that unless you’ve
been through it you just can’t even express it to somebody. It is so
devastating for all of us. So stressful, so stressful.”
Konicki praised DEM, the Coastal Resource Management Council
(CRMC) and RIEMA for their rapid response to crisis. The stress and anguish
business owner endured, however, was the result of haggling with insurance
companies, problems with federal relief agencies, the loss of income and some
looting, Konicki said.
The silver lining, she said, is that many of the businesses made
more money last summer than the summers before the storm. A fact she credits to
new, low-impact amenities such as tents for outdoor events that replaced
permanent structures and two eateries that converted their kitchens into mobile
food trailers.
Caroline Karp, a senior lecturer at Brown University’s Center for
Environmental Studies, questioned whether any structures should be rebuilt
along beaches that are expected to erode considerably. Many environmentalists
have raised this issue since Sandy and other coastal storms hit Rhode Island.
Karp suggested that the state set clear standards for rebuilding and that a
state inspector work with the local inspector to determine how or if a structure
can be rebuilt.
Currently, local building inspectors decide if structures damaged
by storms and flooding meet a 50 percent threshold. If the damage exceeds 50
percent of the cost to replace the structure, the owner can only rebuild if
they comply with the most recent standards for height and distance from the
water, called a setback. Due to ongoing erosion, many beachfront owners no
longer have the space, much less the money, to comply with the more rigorous
standards.
Konicki said there are no programs that offer funds or strategies
for businesses to retreat inland or relocate.
“We were very fortunate that in Westerly the building inspector
worked with people to really help them with that and try to keep people to the
49.9 percent so that they could rebuild if they wanted to under the old rule,”
Konicki said.
RIEMA’s Michelle Burnett sought to clarify any suggestion that
businesses received favoritism from building inspectors. REIMA officials, she
said, made the damage assessment with local building inspectors.
“They had to be incredibly cognizant of exceeding that 50 percent
rule,” Burnett said. “Had they done things to essentially fudge numbers, they
would come under scrutiny when FEMA comes down to audit them.”
CRMC director Grover Fugate noted that a CRMC employee made the
property assessments with the local building inspector after Sandy. However, he
expressed concern about a likely problem that many beachfront property owners
face: becoming stranded in the water as entire beaches move inland.
“The structure is then condemned, (and the owners) walk away from
mortgages and who pays for the cleanup if it’s sitting out in the water?”
Fugate said.
The topic, he added, will receive scrutiny during a March 3 forum sponsored by the CRMC at the
University of Rhode Island, where a national expert will speak on coastal
construction.
Coit summarized the private property dilemma this way: “After the
hurricanes isn’t the best time to make those policy and legal decisions, so
those are the things we need to be talking about now.”
Mental
health
The topic of mental health received unexpected attention during the EC4’s Feb. 11 meeting. Konicki described the strain business owners and her staff felt as they worked through the recovery and rebuilding process after Sandy.
She recommended mental-health services as part of disaster relief
for business owners “who were really put through the wringer emotionally and
financially and ill-prepared to deal with this.”
“We needed somebody there that people could talk to and get a hug
from, and get referred for counseling,” she said. “We needed counseling.”
A representative from the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Council
also supported the need for raising awareness about mental health issues
brought on by climate change and other disasters.
Mental health is one of the topics addressed in a new report on climate change and health
resiliency released by the state Department of Health. The report says
low-income and coastal communities are the most vulnerable populations.
Wastewater
treatment
Like many sewage treatment plants in the state, the Warwick wastewater treatment facility is in a low-elevation, flood-prone area. The Warwick facility discharges into the nearby Pawtuxet River, which experienced a 100-year flood in March 2010.
Insurance and federal agencies paid for most of the $14 million in
damages, and funds continue to support projects to fortify the facility and
elevate pump stations across Warwick — all in an effort to meet a 500-year
flood threshold. It will cost $2 million alone to raise the levee that protects
the treatment facility from the river.
Sea-level rise, combined with the added rain and snow, has
increased groundwater and stormwater runoff.
“The increasing precipitation is killing us,” said Janine Burke,
director of the Warwick Sewer Authority. “We’re always responding to
emergencies.”
This heightened water-flow problem has prompted the DEM to launch
a project with the CRMC to study the impacts of climate change on wastewater
treatment facilities. The March meeting of the EC4 will include this issue as
part of a five-year-anniversary review of the 2010 flood.
