Make sea rise part of plan process

By Steve Estes

As first our county planners and consultants, then our planning commissioners, then our county commissioners, work their way through the upcoming comprehensive land use plan update, one overriding background issue should step out of that shadow into the forefront.

Every policy decision we make from here forward should have as part of its thought process a discussion on the effect of sea level rise on that policy.

There are routine policies and mundane issues that will not be in the slightest affected by sea level rise. Those can be dispensed with as our leaders will.

But there are other policies that will be greatly affected by the coming rise in sea level around our island chain.

Transportation policies, particularly concerning how high to elevate road beds, should get a thorough look now.

The comprehensive plan update is supposed to get us through the next 20 years. If the worst case scenario holds true, we’ll see another half-foot or more of sea level rise in that time frame. Even if the best comes to pass, we’ll see a rise of a few inches.

And we have roadbeds that are only inches above sea level now. A three-inch rise with an equinox, perigee or apogee tide puts those thoroughfares under water eight or ten hours a day a few times a year or so.

And if we force our residents to drive through salt water a few dozen times a year, how long will it take before corporate America, ever looking for a way to pass along costs to the consumer either by cutting their own or jacking up process, starts refusing to honor warranty claims and insurance claims caused by saltwater incursion?

How much more often do we have to replace a road that is consistently dipped under salt water? How many more times do we have to patch a road that is constantly inundated by saltwater?

Our planning should require that every road bed be raised a foot to start with whenever it is paved. We can adjust from there.

Our policies must address development rights on privately held submerged lands, and what to do if an existing use goes from waterfront to waterborne following a 15-year trend of rising sea level.

Our new policies must address waterfront building codes that require lifting driveways and solidifying pylons that might be underwater more in the next 20 years than they have been in the past.

We must look at where our water and sewer lines are being installed, and ensure that access points won’t be underwater in 20 years, or underwater a lot of the time.

We have to start looking now at the changing data of storm surge coupled with sea level rise. A six-inch rise in sea level could mean a corresponding, or larger, increase in storm surge. We don’t know these answers yet.

We need a hard look at the effect of sea level rise on the endangered flora and fauna with which we share these islands so we can understand the importance of our stewardship and the directions we’ll need to take in the coming decades.

We need to start putting together a plan that addresses land losses and appraisal effects as more and more of our precious land disappears beneath the surface of the salt water that surrounds us.

Long-range planning has long been one of the weak points in Monroe County government. We have a better, stronger commission than we have had in the last two decades. This task is not above them.

And it is a task that needs to start now, when the planning process is in its infancy, rather than as a knee-jerk reaction when the first waterfront hotel loses its driveway during high tide.