Building Resilience

RHODE ISLAND'S OCEAN AND COASTAL MAGAZINE • VOL 11 NO 3 FALL 2019 41°N BUILDING RESILIENCE A PUBLICATION OF RHODE ISLAND SEA GRANT & THE COASTAL INSTITUTE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND • A41˚ SEA NGRANT fall INSTITUTION 2019 FC FROM THE EDITOR 41°N EDITORIAL STAFF Monica Allard Cox, Editor Judith Swift Alan Desbonnet Meredith Haas Amber Neville ART DIRECTOR Ernesto Aparicio PROOFREADER Lesley Squillante RAISING HOPE COVER “you’ve got to find things that give you joy.” Portrait of Cyndi Murray by Stephanie Craig Those words from Cyndi Murray, in our cover story, express her resilience ABOUT 41°N in the face of her decades-long struggle with Lyme disease. 41°N is published twice per year by the Rhode Island Sea Grant College Program and the Months ago, as we gathered in an office in the uri Coastal Institute to plan Coastal Institute at the University of Rhode this issue, the editorial team of 41°N decided we wanted to tell stories like Island (URI). The name refers to the latitude at this—stories of resilience, focusing on hope, in the face of climate change. which Rhode Island lies. Our writers found planners in cities, towns, and the state who are ensur- Rhode Island Sea Grant is a part of the National ing that infrastructure and development are taking future sea level rise and Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and storms into account. Health officials are helping people affected by rising was established to promote the conservation temperatures. Medical students are learning about how climate change will and sustainable development of marine re- impact their patients. sources for the public benefit through research, The hope these stories portray is not blind faith that some technological outreach, and education. intervention will reverse climate change altogether, but rather recogni- The URI Coastal Institute works in partnerships tion that climate change is happening. Even as the world works, unevenly, to provide a neutral setting where knowledge to curb it, we must—and can—grapple with its effects. While there are is advanced, issues discussed, information examples of growing resilience around Rhode Island, one place where action synthesized, and solutions developed for the appears lacking is at the state’s ports. Still, this “Building Resilience” issue sustainable use and management of coastal looks much different than it would have a few years ago, when munici- ecosystems. The Coastal Institute works across pal decision makers, as Narragansett’s community development director and beyond traditional structures to encourage Michael DeLuca alludes to in “Flushing into the Flood,” were far less aware new approaches to problem solving. of how climate change would affect their communities. Since then, tools like stormtools demonstrate what Rhode Island coastal areas will look Change of address, subscription information, like under various storm and sea level rise scenarios, municipal leaders or editorial correspondence: 41°N, Rhode have received state-required training in climate change, and new state and Island Sea Grant, University of Rhode Island, local regulations and plans are changing how building happens in vulnerable Narragansett Bay Campus, Narragansett, RI coastal areas. 02882-1197. Telephone: (401) 874-6805. E-mail: [email protected] All this may not give you joy, exactly, but perhaps optimism for Rhode Island’s future. We certainly hope so. Reprinting material from 41°N is encouraged, but we request that you notify us of your —MONICA ALLARD COX intentions, give credit to 41°N and the article’s Editor author(s), and send us a copy of your final publication. Subscriptions to 41º N are free. Visit 41Nmagazine.org to sign up. IFC 41˚ N fall 2019 Contents Photograph courtesy of ProvPort UNSAFE HARBOR 2 Rhode Island ports threatened by rising seas and storms by cathy shufro FLUSHING INTO THE FLOOD 10 Sea level rise and storms are changing how communities deal with wastewater by sue kennedy A RISING CHALLENGE 18 Rhode Island grapples with the policy and practice of coastal resiliency by ellen liberman MAPPING THE ROAD TO RESILIENCE 24 by hugh markey ONE BLOCK IN 30 Misquamicut businesses seven years after Sandy by hugh markey UNHEALTHY TEMPERATURE 34 Rethinking public health as climate changes by jen a. miller 38 LIVING WITH LYME by meredith haas FOLLOWING THE FISH 42 Rhode Island’s resilient commercial fishing fleet adapts to species shifts by annie sherman RISING 44 Dispatches from the New American Shore By Elizabeth Rush Photograph courtesy of the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation Reviewed by monica allard cox 41˚ N fall 201 1 FOCUS ON HARVEST UNSAFE HARBOR RHODE ISLAND PORTS THREATENED BY RISING SEAS AND STORMS by Cathy Shufro 2 41˚ N fall 2019 FOCUS ON GEOLOGY UNSAFE HARBOR RHODE ISLAND PORTS THREATENED BY RISING SEAS AND STORMS by Cathy Shufro Photograph by Michael Salerno 41˚ N fall 2019 3 BUILDING RESILIENCE a yellow-and-gray crane towers above a hill of salt on the ProvPort pier. This late-March delivery from Egypt constitutes just a fraction of the 650,000 tons of road salt that the crane will unload here by year’s end—salt shipped from Morocco, from Chile, from the Bahamas. Highway crews will spread it this winter in eastern Connecticut, throughout Rhode Island, and in Massachusetts from Springfield clear out to the islands. Nearby, on other ProvPort land overlooking Narra- gansett Bay, roughly 4,000 derelict cars sit in rows on a capped landfill. They are among 30,000 that will be shipped this year from Providence to the Middle East and West Africa, where the cars will be refur- bished. The sun glints on their roofs. Just as it takes an effort to picture icy roads on a balmy afternoon, it’s difficult to imagine what the port landscape in the upper bay and along the Providence River would look like in the midst of a raging hurricane, or how the shoreline will alter as the climate heats up and tides rise. “When the port was developed [in the 1930s], they weren’t considering sea level change,” says Bill Fischer, the spokesman for ProvPort. The private nonprofit con- trols 115 acres at Fields Point, south of the city. “Post-Katrina was when we started hearing people talk about it,” says Chris Waterson, general manager of Waterson Terminal Services, which runs ProvPort. “And after Sandy,” Fischer adds. A lucky left hook Superstorm Sandy was heading straight for New England in October 2012 when it veered westward. On October 29, the storm hit New Jersey instead and then slammed into New York Harbor. The resulting havoc shut down the Port of New York and New Jersey for a week. Sandy’s “left hook” spared Rhode Island and its ports. But when a major hurricane does hit Narragan- sett Bay (as happened in 1938 and 1954), how will it affect the low-lying coast of Providence and East Providence? The dikes and gates built at Fox Point following Hurricane Carol in 1954 won’t shield the port area from a storm: that barrier was built to protect downtown Waterfront fuel storage tanks in Providence are the basis Providence. To the south lies a dense industrial lands- of a lawsuit by the Conservation Law Foundation. cape dotted with storage tanks filled with gasoline, jet Photograph by Maine Imaging fuel, liquid asphalt, and the heating oil that supplies most of Rhode Island. On or near the waterfront are a gency Management Agency—has called Narragansett metals recycling company, a sewage treatment plant, Bay “the Achilles’ heel of New England.” And Rhode a wholesale distributor of chemicals, and two 400-ton Island politicians, planners, businesspeople, and other cranes. As ecoRI News notes, 11 of the Providence pol- citizens worry about storms to come. Still, no one luters listed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s interviewed for this story was willing to speculate much Toxics Release Inventory Program are located in the about what a powerful hurricane would do to the port neighborhood. Port of Providence (at 41.8° N) and to the smaller Port The nation’s disaster specialist—the Federal Emer- of Davisville on Quonset Peninsula (at 41.6° N). 4 41˚ N fall 2019 BUILDING RESILIENCE RHODE ISLAND POLITICIANS, PLANNERS, BUSINESS PEOPLE, AND OTHER CITIZENS WORRY ABOUT STORMS TO COME 41˚ N fall 2019 5 FOCUS ON HARVEST Sandy’s impact on the Port of New York and New dated the highway tunnel linking Brooklyn and Man- Jersey could prove to be a preview: Waves there broke hattan. The storm damaged or destroyed hundreds of records. Port terminals flooded. Sewage plants over- thousands of homes and apartments. flowed, and waste contaminated drinking water in a The closure of New York Harbor severed regional swath from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Queens, New York. and international supply chains, causing billions Debris cut off the port from higher land by clogging of dollars in losses. Similarly, Narragansett Bay’s two storm drains and blocking low-lying roads and train commercial ports handle cargoes from all over the tracks. Power lines went down, and fuel for back-up world, and the ports are vital to the region’s economy: generators was stuck in storage tanks whose pumps ProvPort is one of the major deepwater ports in the had been swamped and ruined. Water poured into sec- Northeast, and Davisville is, among other things, a tions of the New York City subway system and inun- major automobile importer; last year, ships delivered 6 41˚ N fall 2019 BUILDING RESILIENCE Scrap metal awaits recycling at the Port of Providence. Photograph by Frank Carini/ecoRI News how a hotter climate is already affecting Rhode Island. “For many people,” she said, “climate change and the threat of flooding seem really far away in the future.” Such complacency is one of several barriers to con- fronting climate change.

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