Climate Change and Local Impacts
By Albert B. Kelly
A constituent recently sent me a link to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) webpage entitled “Sea Level Rise
Viewer” ( https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr
). Once on the page, I was able to zoom in on various parts of the country to
get a view of sea level rise and the potential coastal flooding impacts that
could be expected in the not too distant future. Naturally I went to South
Jersey and then proceeded to zoom in on Cumberland County and ultimately
Bridgeton.
Based on what I saw, I desperately want the climate
scientists to be wrong, but I don’t think we’ll get that lucky. Based on what I
saw, I got a better understanding of why a percentage of folks find comfort in
sticking their heads in the sand and labeling climate change as a bunch of
made-up nonsense- it’s scary stuff. But if they’re wrong, our children and
grandchildren will pay dearly for our inaction.
At a sea level rise of 6 feet, which is increasingly what
scientists are projecting, Bridgeton will lose almost everything on the east
side of Mayor Aitkin Drive in City Park. This includes much of the park
entrance, the Nail House, old Water Works building, Veterans Park, and the
Swedish Village site. Based on their analysis, the Cohanzick Zoo might be just this
side of the water line and for dry ground we’ll have the old landfill. Go
figure.
But it’s not just City Park, our grandchildren will need a row
boat to make it up to the drive thru window at Dunkin Donuts for their morning
coffee and it’s an even bet as to whether or not they’ll need the boat to get
an Egg McMuffin. If the scientists are
right as to what the end of the century will bring, a good chunk of the
downtown Central Business District along N. Laurel Street will be underwater as
will part of Gateway’s campus.
But it’s not just Bridgeton. In Millville, Walt Whitman Park
and its surrounds along with homes on Jackson Drive, JFK Blvd, Truman Place,
Johnson Court, and Madison Place will be underwater. The same holds true for
the ball fields on Ware Avenue. Further east, Atlantic City is basically gone
along with Ocean City, Margate, Ventnor, Wildwood, and sizable amount of Cape
May.
Heading west into Salem County, a decent portion of Lower
Alleyways Creek is underwater and it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not the
nuclear power plant will make it. Most of Salem City will be underwater as will
be Elsinboro Township. A fair amount of Greenwich Township (Gloucester County)
and Gibbstown will be water logged and a staggering portion of Paulsboro will
be reclaimed by water.
If you’re reading this, chances are pretty good that you yourself
won’t be around to see what life will look like with a 6 foot rise in sea
levels, but our grandkids will be. Seventy years is not that far away. I say
that because when scientists tell us that we’ll be dealing with a 5-6 foot rise
in sea levels by the end of the 21st century, it can sound like the
distant future and so we think we have time. We don’t.
But now is the time to think about how to adapt and become
more resilient. What can we do to protect certain parts of our geography from
the encroaching sea? Where might we place barriers? What roads or traffic
arteries need to be raised? What type of planning is needed for those who will
be made homeless and where should they rebuild? How will we replace lost
recreation space which seems particularly vulnerable and how will we absorb the
loss of agricultural lands?
Forget coming up with hard solutions, we haven’t even
started talking about potential impacts and I think we have an obligation to
set in place a foundation that will allow future leaders not yet born, to pick
up the threads of our work and follow through on mitigating these impacts. This
will require some serious study on the municipal and county level as well as
discussions with state and federal officials. None of this will be easy and
there is a great temptation to kick this can down the road and let it be the
problem of whoever’s around in 2078. But then I can’t shake the imagery of
water covering half of downtown. While climate change is global, the impacts
are always local.
