Photo: NOAA
By Stas Margaronis
Retired Brigadier General Joseph Schroedel urged attendees at the “Strategies for Storms, Flooding and Sea Level Defense Investments” conference to support the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mission to upgrade the nation’s flood control and waterways infrastructure. Schroedel also urged support for budgetary increases in the next Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) which funds USACE projects.
The WRDA passed in 2020 included key provisions to invest in U.S. ports, harbors and inland waterways; build more resilient communities so that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can build projects in an economically and environmentally responsible manner.
Joseph Schroedel
Schroedel is currently the executive director of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) and was introduced by Arvind Acharya, president of the San Francisco District of SAME. The conference took place on April 13th via Zoom and was a collaboration between the Propeller Club of Northern California and SAME.
John Cullather, executive vice president of International Propeller Club of the United States, commended Pete DeFazio, chair of the House, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee which spearheaded bi-partisan passage of the WRDA 2020. DeFazio will be an important champion for President Biden’s infrastructure bill, Cullather said.
Many conference presenters argued that the infrastructure bill must incorporate investments for resiliency and sea level defenses for coastal and inland communities as well as U.S. ports.[1]
AMERICAN FLOOD COALITION
The keynote speaker was Melissa Roberts, executive director for American Flood Coalition. She emphasized the urgency of new federal investments in flood resilient infrastructure. AFC has organized an alliance of communities impacted by flooding to provide a “unified push for better state and federal policies, because flooding is the defining issue of our times.”
Melissa Roberts
Roberts discussed a report AFC produced in cooperation with Johns Hopkins University that found:
- Federal funding in resilience creates jobs and stimulates local markets.
- The report estimates that an investment of $1 billion could create 40,000 jobs in construction and retail industries.
- $1 million increase in funding can generate 4 new construction businesses in the year of the funding award.
Roberts was followed by Victoria Sclafani, senior policy associate, American Flood Coalition, who described the local economic benefits of investing in flood control projects and also discussed AFC’s referral tool that allows communities to search for federal grants in support of flood control and resilience projects.
FIRST STREET FOUNDATION
Mike Kaminski and Sharai Lewis-Gruss, lead and senior adaptation specialists, described the flood impact database developed by First Street Foundation. The database provides flood impact analysis for 140 million properties in the United States and in some cases provides more modern data than is provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) where approximately 70% of FEMA maps are out of date. The presentation generated discussion among attendees related to the need for accurate flood mapping for federal and state agencies to plan against future storms and flooding. In answer to a question, Lewis-Gruss expressed the hope that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would utilize the First Street Foundation flood data to upgrade its databases and flood risk projections.
Kathleen Schaefer, a former FEMA engineer, discussed how natural disaster risks can be transformed into an asset instead of a liability with planning and investment.
DEVELOPMENTS IN LOUISIANA, CALIFORNIA, SOUTH CAROLINA & TEXAS
Panelists also discussed flooding, storm surge and sea level rise threats in Louisiana, California and South Carolina and Texas:
Jeff Varisco, senior project manager, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, analyzed the State of Louisiana’s proposal to divert sediment from the Mississippi river so as to reclaim lost coastal land in southern Louisiana lost to sea level rise and sinking.
Alexander Kolker, associate professor, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, was optimistic about Louisiana’s Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion. Kolker said much more would need to be done to stem the loss of Louisiana coastal land from the sea.
Jonathan Camp, acting chief, Office of Smart Mobility and Climate Change, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) described how California is prioritizing roads and highways that are most vulnerable to flooding and sea level rise.
Jeremy Lowe, coastal geomorphologist, San Francisco Estuary Institute, discussed California’s Highway 37 along San Pablo Bay which adjoins the northern boundary of San Francisco Bay. Lowe said the highway is increasingly prone to flooding and will need to be elevated. The process of elevating the roadway will require the adjoining wetlands and marshlands be improved. One problem is that levees built to support adjoining agricultural land are contributing to land sinking.[2] The estimated cost for elevating Highway 37 is $5 billion dollars, Lowe said.
Kathryn Roscoe, senior flood risk and adaptation specialist for Deltares, described how the Dutch company won a U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant to develop a template for a coastal flood resilience support system that can be used by coastal communities across the United States. Roscoe discussed a pilot project at the city of Charleston, South Carolina which helped to serve as a model for the program. She also noted that a seawall is planned to be built around the peninsula protecting downtown Charleston that leaves surrounding areas unprotected. The Deltares research included identifying vital services such as hospitals, fire stations and police stations that need protection from flooding. In addition, Roscoe cited a study by a Deltares team that describes a new, reduced physics solver that can compute compound flooding in coastal systems with accuracy and reduced computational cost and time.[3]
Meri Davlasheridze, assistant professor, Department of Marine Sciences, Texas A&M University at Galveston, discussed the price of failing to invest in the proposed Texas Coastal Spine System. The Coastal Spine is projected to cost $26 billion and protect the Texas coast from hurricanes and storms. The project includes storm surge gates to protect Galveston Bay and the Port of Houston. Davlasheridze co-authored a study that looked at the cost of NOT building the Coastal Spine. She said no action could result in losses as high as $100 billion to Texas. A bill has been introduced in the Texas Legislature that would create a regional district that could levy taxes and issue bonds to build and maintain the proposed $26 billion system.[4]
NETHERLANDS REPORTS
Jeroen Aerts, director, Department of Water and Climate Risk, VU University of Amsterdam, Dirk-Jan Walstra, director, Hydraulic Engineering Department, Deltares and Matthijs Bos, lead climate adaptation and flood resilience specialist for Royal Haskoning, DHV, discussed recent developments in the Netherlands:
- Aerts discussed how both the ports of Shanghai and Rotterdam have built cargo handling facilities on reclaimed land to avoid growing inland flooding threats.
- Walstra described how Deltares has developed wave simulation machines at its campus in the Netherlands. One machine can generate 15-foot waves to test the impact of water hitting walls other structures.
- Bos described Royal Haskoning software that calculates cost/benefit defenses that has been used to upgrades terminals at the Port of Rotterdam. No such comparable software exists in the United States, he said.[5]
All three agreed that the long-term threat of flooding and rising sea levels has made the Netherlands a living model and center for research into the threats posed by flooding, storm surges and sea level rise.
SEA LEVEL RISE DRIVES SALTWATER INTO FRESH WATER TABLES
The final segment of the conference addressed saltwater threats to water tables adjoining U.S. Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts:
Grace Todd and Bill Lambrecht discussed “Saltwater Threats to U.S. Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Coasts Water Supply.” The two authors produced a series of detailed reports on saltwater contamination of water tables in 2020. In the reports, the authors discussed the cascading consequences of saltwater intrusion based on more than 100 interviews with researchers, planners and coastal residents. The reports were a project of the University of Maryland’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. New scientific research shows measurable change, much of it from saltwater’s unseen advance beneath the surface. The threat is widespread; roughly 40% of Americans live in coastal counties, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Rising seas, more frequent storms, higher tides, drought and the pressure of pumping for drinking water combine to accelerate the salt invasion. The effects of the changing climate worsen challenges for landowners, local planners and people. [6]
Kyle Hopkins, partner Oisann Engineering based in Norway, discussed the company’s desalination module that will operates offshore and in 300-meter depths. The module is scheduled for completion in the Fall of 2021, Hopkins said. The Norwegian company believes the technology will eliminate the negative impacts of generating excessive brine and harming marine life that has been a criticism of land-based desalination plants. Hopkins argues that the massive deployment of offshore wind farms powering the desalination modules could create an offshore fleet of renewably powered desalination vessels that could pump fresh water back into coastal freshwater tables.
FOOTNOTES
[1] https://transportation.house.gov/committee-activity/issue/water-resources-development-act-of-2020
[2] https://resiliency.lsu.edu/outside-resources-blog/2017/11/21/the-coupled-histories-of-flood-control-land-loss-in-louisiana
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378383920304828
[4] https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/insider/article/How-do-you-build-maintain-26-billion-Ike-16072684.php
[5] https://www.royalhaskoningdhv.com/en-gb/services/a-z-services/global-flood-risk-tool/10245
[6] https://cnsmaryland.org/2020/11/23/driven-by-rising-seas-threats-to-drinking-water-crops-from-saltwater-are-growing-in-u-s/