S3:E1: Expert Perspective - Dr. Rob Young | Podcast

Welcome to the first episode of season 3 of The Climate Conversation! In this episode, EESI’s Dan Bresette and Amber Todoroff interview coastal resilience expert, Western Carolina University professor, and EESI Advisory Board member Dr. Rob Young. They discuss climate change threats to Charleston, a proposed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seawall project, and solutions to make the coastline more resilient.

Show notes:

Rob's blog post on the proposed seawall project in Charleston, South Carolina

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With all the depressing climate news out there, it’s sometimes hard to see progress. The Climate Conversation cuts through the noise and presents you with relevant climate change solutions happening on the Hill and in communities around the United States.

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Episode transcript:

Dan: Hi and welcome to season three of The Climate Conversation. I'm Dan Bresette, Executive Director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, and we are thrilled to be back with another season of our podcast to share amazing interviews and stories with everyone in our audience. We have a really great, jam-packed season ahead, season three, including episodes on nature-based solutions, environmental justice, beneficial electrification, and so much more. And it's going to be very closely aligned with our spring congressional briefings which have already started. Our first congressional briefing of the year was January 12, about advanced weather forecasting, if you haven't already checked it out, it was amazing. Just did a tremendous panel and a really cool topic, and a timely topic too, because we're recording this at the start of February and it is cold outside at least here in Washington DC. So weather forecasting is on everybody's mind. And you don't want to miss out. Speaking of our first briefing of the year, you might remember that Amber Todoroff was my co-moderator in that briefing, and Amber is our special guest today on our first episode of season three. She's going to be co-hosting the podcast with me today. Let me introduce Senior Policy Associate Amber Todoroff. Amber, welcome to the podcast.

Amber: Hi Dan, I'm excited to be hosting this episode with you because we'll be talking about coastal resilience, which I'm super passionate about and we will be interviewing a member of EESI’s Advisory Board, Dr. Rob Young. Rob is the director of the program for the study of developed shorelines and a professor of geology at Western Carolina University. Welcome, Rob.

Rob: Thanks for having me Amber.

Amber: Can you start off by explaining what the program for the study of developed shorelines is and what it is trying to achieve?

Rob: Sure, the program for the study of developed shorelines was founded at Duke in the mid-80s. The goal of the center is to both do scientific research related to coastal processes coastal hazards, sea level rise, climate change impacts, coastal restoration, and to take that science and communicate it to shareholders at all levels. So everything from individual property owners, property owners associations, municipalities, county governments, state government, federal government, we work at all of those different levels and we also communicate directly to the general public by writing things like op eds and newspapers and articles in popular magazines and through social media and things like that. So we are by and large scientists in the program for the study of developed shorelines doing science, but a main part of our mission is to communicate that science to all kinds of different folks. And for the last 12 years, the center has been located in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina at Western Carolina University, which is where I choose to make my home, but we are still a joint center with Duke and still have a variety of different ways to collaborate together to complete that mission.

Dan: You recently wrote a blog post and we'll include a link to that blog post in our episode description. And the blog post was about a proposed seawall project in Charleston, South Carolina. And I think this example will help us highlight the complexity of creating resilient coastlines, where there also happens to be a lot of development. What are the sea level rise and flooding challenges that Charleston faces? And how has the city attempted to address those in the past?

Rob: Well, the Charleston Peninsula which if you've been paying attention for the last several years in numerous different outlets, has been labeled the world's greatest city and greatest tourist destination. It's grown rapidly over the last decade and also has a very, very long and important historic and cultural heritage. The Charleston Peninsula is about as exposed to climate change, rising sea level and storms as you can be. Most of it has been constructed on wetlands that were filled in long, long ago. This is an area that sits in Charleston Harbor, facing right out through an inlet and is exposed to hurricane impact, storm surge, but maybe even more importantly than that, it is exposed to rising sea level, and that rising sea level is not just coming up around the Charleston Peninsula or the city but it's also coming up beneath the city. Very important for folks to understand that sea level rise doesn't just erode shorelines and move beaches, although it does that very well. But sea level rise also changes the regional water table. It actually sort of backs up the plumbing and lifts the groundwater in the coastal zone, especially in areas that are relatively flat. And when that water table comes up, and it rains, the rainwater can't percolate in like it used to. So the City of Charleston has seen accelerating numbers of days of nuisance flooding, where it can be a sunny day and floodwaters are coming in over the top of roads surrounding buildings in many portions of the city. City of Charleston has also experienced a lot more rain driven flooding, so you get a big rainstorm and it's harder for that rain to run off into the estuary because sea level has risen and you just simply don't have the slope anymore. Most stone water systems require gravity to take the water out into the ocean. But also again the water coming up under the city is causing that rainwater to pool much faster and flood areas that are disconnected from the sea. In fact the lowest lying spots in some coastal areas including the city of Charleston during king tides, the groundwater table is tidal as well. So there are places where the water actually comes up out of the ground to flood cities, farmlands in flat coastal areas. So you have this really popular place that is the Charleston peninsula that is very interested in continuing to capitalize on that popularity by building tourist infrastructure. In particular restaurants, hotels, apartments for both long term and short-term rentals. But it is exposed to all of those coastal hazards that any place could be exposed to on the US east coast. So it's a really tough nut to crack and the city has begun to address some of that by reworking the way their stormwater runs off and trying to tackle those basic drainage problems. They have been working with the Corps of Engineers to develop a proposal to build a seawall around the peninsula, but they're really just beginning to address the issues that they will be facing in the future. And unfortunately, at the same time that all of this is happening, they are in many places increasing the density of development within the Charleston Peninsula and within the limits of the city. The city of Charleston is larger than just the peninsula. And you know, that makes things a little bit more complicated, right, trying a little bit like trying to have your cake and eat it too.

Amber: So Rob, you just mentioned the seawall project that the US Army Corps of Engineers proposed in Charleston, which would entail building a 12-foot seawall around most of the peninsula. What does the Corps consider when proposing these kinds of projects? And what are some of the pros and cons of their model?

Rob: So for a project like this, the funding that the Corps is accessing is for storm damage reduction. So the Corps does not see this proposed project, nor this proposal as being something that will address all the flooding issues that I just mentioned. It's primarily for reducing storm surge damage during a hurricane. The cost of the project is over a billion dollars at the current cost estimate. Corps projects are often very optimistic when they are pricing them early on. So those costs could easily go up. And the tricky part about project development for the Corps of Engineers and accessing federal funding to at least pay a share of that project is the cost analysis. So the Corps is required to do this economic analysis that shows that the cost of the project will be offset by storm damage averted during the duration of the project during the next few decades, 50 years. So they have to do a bunch of modeling and economic analysis that suggests that the seawall is going to reduce property damage. The economic analysis in my mind is a little bit problematic from a couple of different viewpoints. One is that it tends to lead to us protecting very expensive property at the expense of property that's not very expensive, because if you're going to spend a lot of money providing protection, you need to be protecting property that's valuable and not property that is not valuable. So you get a much better benefit cost ratio protecting million and a half dollar homes than you do $100,000 homes. So there is an economic justice problem with doing this economic analysis for storm damage reduction. That the Corps does, and it's not just with the Charleston project, that's pretty much standard practice across the board for the way the Corps of Engineers handles storm damage reduction projects, whether it's a beach replenishment project, or whether it's a seawall like this one proposed for the Charleston peninsula. The other problem is that, you know, they are restricted to focusing on storm damage reduction. So, if you're the City of Charleston, and you will still have to provide matching funds to this very expensive project, which will be on the order of 300 million plus dollars for the local sponsor to come up with. You have to ask yourself, what is the biggest hazard that threatens the economic livelihood and the quality of life for the Charleston Peninsula? Is it storm surge from the next hurricane? Or might it actually be the nuisance flooding that the city has been experiencing 30, 35 days a year? The rain driven flooding? This project is not designed to address those hazards. It's only designed to address the storm surge from a modest up to maybe category three hurricane and so that leaves you open to having this very difficult discussion and decision-making process where the Corps is here, dangling hundreds of millions of federal dollars in front of you to build a seawall project. But you still have to come up with significant match for your community. But where do you start? Is the best place to start by building a seawall around the peninsula or should we be starting someplace else? I think that's where the city of Charleston is right now. And they have not yet decided whether to play along with the Corps’ proposal or not that that decision will be forthcoming in the next few weeks probably.

Dan: As you've described, it is pretty clear that a seawall won't solve all of Charleston flooding problems. And the seawall is not really designed to solve all of Charleston’s flooding problems. What other steps are available to Charleston and cities like Charleston, to make its coasts more resilient and to better protect coastal communities and in particular, you know, we at EESI we really like talking about nature-based solutions. I'm curious, are there strategies that are considered nature-based solutions that could also help a city like Charleston?

Rob: Well, nature-based solutions are great and that they can provide some storm damage protection, some nuisance a little bit of nuisance flooding protection while adding some ecosystem values. But I should point out that just like a seawall, they don't change anything about the water rising underneath the city. Right. So the downside to nature-based solutions for folks in low lying coastal areas is that they're still trying to hold the shoreline in place basically, but they're not addressing anything that's going on inland. That's one thing that everybody needs to take into consideration. You know, my first recommendation of what we should be doing is, for goodness sakes, first do no more harm. And this seems to be the most difficult thing that all localities across the country have trouble with. You know, I've been evaluating a proposal in Wilmington, North Carolina for a rezoning of what may be the most flood prone site in the state of North Carolina at the confluence of two rivers just across from the city of Wilmington, and the planning office sent out a recommendation to rezone it to high density urban development. It's hard for us to really grapple with serious resilience and storm damage reduction when we continue to want to place things in harm's way. It's also very difficult for me to swallow continued federal spending for resilience in localities and cities that are just putting more and more stuff in the way and then asking for more and more federal dollars to reduce their resilience. To me that's the obvious starting point, and should be pretty straightforward. But at the local, political level is just unbelievably hard to stop those projects. Second of all, cities like Charleston, I think really needed to be taking this nuisance flooding a little bit more seriously than the next storm, honestly. The city of Charleston has been exposed to storms for hundreds of years, and never shut the place down. Yes, we've got 20 plus inches more of sea level rise since then. But you know, I don't think a storm that happens during the next two or three decades is going to close Charleston. What could close Charleston is another foot or two of sea level rise that begins flooding transportation. arteries, 60 days a year, 70 days a year. The hospital district is vulnerable to nuisance flooding. You know, I think we really need to be focusing on these long term changes being brought by sea level rise, that are impacting our lives our economy, our quality of life weeks out of the year now, rather than focusing on the next storm impact and, you know, this is where I wish we could change the approach that the Army Corps of Engineers feels pigeon holed into to primarily focus on storm damage reduction because you can do a lot of good with a billion dollars of spending around the city of Charleston, beyond just building a seawall and that doesn't mean we might not put choose a seawall or some gray infrastructure in a few locations. But it's way more complicated than that.

Amber: Rob, I'm really surprised you haven't mentioned the word retreat yet.

Rob: Yeah, well, nobody really wants to talk about it. But you know, I appreciate you raising that as an issue because ultimately, retreat will be the only option we will have in some locations nationally. And you know, retreat doesn't mean that we abandon the coast or the coastal economy, far from it. What managed retreat means is that there will be some spots that are so incredibly vulnerable right now there are many places like that already. That the only thing that makes sense is that we take a step back and you take a step back so that you can concentrate your resilience resources on the parts of your community that are more sustainable. It's you know, retreat is a way to preserve the coastal economy over the long run. It's not a way to end the coastal economy. We just have to be willing to allow the map of the community to change in some places. And, you know, honestly, as sea level continues to rise, and as sea level rise continues to accelerate, we will retreat. The question is, are we going to do it in a managed way? Or are we going to do it in a way that is completely unmanaged? And that's how you damage the coastal economy, is you have no plan. And most places at this particular time have no plan for how that might happen. And you know, to me, that's a problem. Retreat should be a tool that's in everybody's toolbox. And it doesn't mean you send in the stormtroopers and order everybody off the coast.

Amber: Charleston is one of many coastal cities that will have to make these difficult decisions on how to protect its communities and remain intact. But looking to the future, what do you see in this field of coastal resilience both in 2022 and further out?

Rob: The pots of money available for resilience projects are increasing dramatically, coming from FEMA, Corps of Engineers from HUD, all kinds of different places. There are pots of money available now, at the state level, community level, federal level to do Resilience Project. The problem that I see is how those funds come at us. So much of that funding comes through emergency appropriations, and it comes through sort of one-off spending bills like the infrastructure bill, it comes to agencies with, you know, not wonderfully clear direction. We spend a lot of money, but we've got no plan nationally, on where the best places to spend that money. Where do we get our bang for our buck? How to ensure social environmental justice, when we spend that money? We really have no plan. The Corps has gotten a tremendous amount of money over the last 10 years through different emergency relief bills and now the infrastructure bill and there is no real congressional oversight or vision that's guiding that spending and that troubles me because when that happens, some of that money, maybe even the majority of it will be spent on good projects. I have no doubt about that. And I don't think that there are agencies or bureaus out there that are trying to shirk their responsibility. I have a tremendous amount of spec respect for the people who are trying to do that work. But still, it doesn't mean that we couldn't be doing it in a better way, with a plan, with a national plan for where the real Federal Interest is and spending that money where the state level interest is where the public sector leaves off and where the private sector should be really picking up the tab to protect things like investment property and businesses. This is a national discussion that we need to have that we have not had. We spend a tremendous amount of money, but it's not in an organized way and it tends to go to communities that are very well organized and have a lot of capacity. But if you are in an unincorporated area in a county in eastern North Carolina, South Carolina, or Connecticut, Massachusetts for that matter, it's a lot more difficult for you to access and to tap into those pots of money because you don't have the capacity to develop projects. You don't have the people to write the grant proposals. You have to hope that somebody else might do that for you. And so, you know, I think while we are making a tremendous amount of progress, recognizing that we need to take resilience seriously. Sea level rise is real, and we need to respond to it to protect the coastal economy. I don't think we're doing it in a way that benefits all Americans is everybody the same chance at those pots of money. And I don't think that we're doing it in a way that makes sure that we're getting the most bang for our buck on that federal spending. I don't know how you fix that. Having a super functioning legislative branch would be a good start, with good congressional oversight for the money that Congress has the responsibility to spend and allocate. But you know, right now I see that as one of the biggest problems. We have is just we are spending a pretty decent amount of money, but really in a pretty haphazard way. And, you know, I have not seen any big picture studies that have looked back at where that money's being spent, how it's going, where it's working out well and where it has.

Dan: Thanks for joining us today Rob. You talked about a function legislative branch. That's what we're working on providing policymakers with good, timely, relevant information about all of this and this podcast is part of that. So thanks very much for joining us. And also I was thinking as I was listening to you talk a little bit we might need better words than nuisance flooding and retreat. If we're going to have good conversations about this. I'm not sure nuisance flooding is what I would call something that might be 10% of the time. That sounds like we might have some room for improvement there. But it was great and very generous of you take time out of your day to join me in Amber to talk all about these issues. I said we'd link to your blog post will absolutely do that. And before we let you go, also, thanks again for being a member of our advisory board. We couldn't do our work without you and the others on our advisory board. I really appreciate that support too.

Rob: Yeah, my pleasure. And then so always fun to hang out with you guys. I appreciate the work that you all do. In educating our elected officials, hopefully to help them make wise decisions that sort of the mission of my center as well. Yeah, had a great time. Thanks, guys.

Dan: It is always great to talk with Rob, and it has been great to get to know him over the past few years, really important voice in our coastal resilience work. Amber, do you have any final thoughts?

Amber: It’s clear that communities around the country are making difficult decisions. Congress can be strategic and realistic about what projects they fund.

Dan: That does it for episode 1 of season 3 of the climate conversation. We have briefings coming on federal programs already delivering benefits: RESP, energy efficiency, climate adaptation, large landscape conservation, and more. Hope everyone can get the chance to join us! Thanks for joining us, and see you next time.