Eastern Shore town launches counterattack on climate flooding - The Chesapeake Bay Journal
Eastern Shore town launches counterattack on climate flooding | Climate Change | bayjournal.com
“Sunny day” high water inundates a street in Crisfield, MD.
A small town threatened by sea level rise on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is getting a big boost from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in its fight against flooding.
Crisfield is receiving $36 million from FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, the agency announced July 15. The funding is slated for the construction of the first of two phases of a massive public works effort to protect the city of 2,500 residents from tidal flooding and storm surges.
The first phase, dubbed the Southern Crisfield Flood Mitigation Project, is designed to provide up to 3.5 feet of flood protection. Once the second phase — the “Northern Crisfield” half of the project — is completed, both areas will be protected up to the 5-foot level, officials say.
Plans call for constructing a tidal flood-protection barrier that will surround the project area. The project also will add new storm sewers, swales, improved ditches, pump stations, storage facilities and wetlands. Along the perimeter, tide gates will be installed to prevent water from entering the drainage system.
Crisfield Mayor Darlene Taylor called the funding “nothing short of phenomenal.” She added, “I am still processing this wonderful accomplishment. Believing this was possible and having it come to fruition is simply amazing. This is when the real work begins.”
As the Bay Journal reported in March, Crisfield’s plight in the face of climate change is widely seen as a bellwether for rural coastal communities in the Chesapeake Bay region and beyond. Given their modest budgets and available staffing, smaller towns often face greater difficulty accessing climate resources compared to their more-populous counterparts.
Construction isn’t expected to begin until at least 2026. Crisfield officials say they plan to apply for grants for the northern half of the project in the fall.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.