Rising sea levels challenge Rhode Island

SIGN OF THINGS TO COME: A trailer park on Matunuck Beach Road in South Kingstown was flooded by the extreme weather brought by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
SIGN OF THINGS TO COME: A trailer park on Matunuck Beach Road in South Kingstown was flooded by the extreme weather brought by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

Editor’s note: In celebration of Providence Business News’ 30th anniversary, staff writers and contributors examined the stories and trends that defined the region’s business scene for the period.
With nearly 400 miles of coastland, the Ocean State is acutely aware of the environment and its relationship to water.

For three decades, stories about wastewater mitigation, natural disasters and how rising sea levels will affect the future of life in Rhode Island have found their way into the pages of Providence Business News.

“Climate change is the single biggest issue that the coastal environment and coastal development will be facing for the next several decades,” Grover Fugate, executive director of R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council, told PBN this year. “We’re losing salt marsh at an alarming rate, we’re seeing our species shift, and our ecosystem is completely changing on us right now. It won’t be long before significant portions of Rhode Island are submerged, including coastal towns, even part of Providence.”

Before looking to the future, however, it’s important to understand Rhode Island’s past. A large portion of the state’s coastland runs alongside Narragansett Bay, which for decades was taking on billions of gallons of sewage and untreated rainwater runoff. In the 1800s, engineers built pipes to carry sewage and runoff out of Providence. And while the infrastructure was effective, for a time, decades of population growth and the expansion of paved roads eventually overloaded the system and sent untreated wastewater into the bay.

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The major impact on the bay’s ecosystem sparked The Narragansett Bay Commission in the 1980s to action. The commission began designing plans to reduce the runoff and the state eventually approved a plan to build a 26-foot-in-diameter, 300-foot-long tunnel, 300 hundred feet below Providence to hold 65 million gallons of sewage and runoff.

Rhode Islanders at the time feared the tunnel, or “subway for sewage,” as it was nicknamed, because it was largely thought to be the Providence version of Boston’s Big Dig. It was built between 2001 and 2008.

The wastewater mitigation largely has been considered one of the most important efforts to clean up the bay, helping the shellfish industry and reducing high levels of pollution.

“This is the best thing in the world to happen for shellfishing,” Jody King, then-vice president of the Rhode Island Shellfisherman’s Association, told PBN in 2008.

Two years later, Rhode Island found itself submerged in a new environmental crisis.

“Obama declares flood emergency in R.I.,” reads a March 31, 2010, PBN headline.

The Ocean State was hit with one of the worst rainstorms in more than a century. The 16.3 inches of rain that fell, mostly during two rainstorms, shut down Interstate 95, flooded the Warwick Mall and required the deployment of the R.I. National Guard. Gov. Donald L. Carcieri called the crisis “a kick in the teeth” in a state already struggling in wake of the financial crisis of 2008.

“It will be a long time before the full impact has been tallied, but in a state with 12.7 percent unemployment that had barely begun to recover from the economic crisis, the bad news just keeps getting worse,” said an April 2010 PBN editorial.

In the end, most businesses afflicted by the floods reopened, but the Warwick Mall and its stores had to spend upwards of $100 million to rebuild. The U.S Small Business Administration approved 173 disaster business loans totaling $12.8 million and another six loans totaling nearly $100,000 to cover economic losses incurred.

And to say everything is back in order six years later would be wrong, as some parts of the state are still managing the effects. A $3.5 million restoration project in Coventry along a portion of the South Branch Pawtuxet River damaged during the floods was completed only in January.

Rhode Island was lucky in 2012 when Superstorm Sandy left the state relatively untouched, but less lucky in February 2015 when 31.8 inches of snow fell on the city, marking a new snowfall record. The increasing frequency of unpredictable weather patterns is concerning in a state so close to the water. Scientists, environmentalists and the state are watching as sea levels rise, understanding that the effects could be devastating for the Ocean State.

Indeed, between 1929 and 2015 the sea level rose about 10 inches. In the next 20 years, state regulators expect it to rise another foot.

“It’s happening and people are seeing it,” Fugate said. “What people have had trouble getting their minds around are the rates that we’re seeing this happen.”

Some project a rise of 7 feet by 2100 would put parts of the state underwater, including Oakland Beach in Warwick, downtown Wickford in North Kingstown and the downtown area of Providence. The loss of salt marsh could cause a shift in the ecosystem and ocean acidification could cause serious problems in coming years.

The question at this point is no longer “how do we stop it?” but rather, “What are the tools to give each community the capability to look at this issue and be proactive and make capital expenditures to make themselves more resilient,” Fugate said.

“This approach is the only sensible one, not just for combating climate change but for dealing with transformational change in any situation. Examine what is happening with the best tools you have, or build the ones that you need, and then make the investment upfront to defend your future,” he added. “Any other course of action just doesn’t make much sense.” •

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