12 • Feb. 26 - Mar. 10, 2016 • The Log


Marine, boatyard operators warned to prepare for sea level rise


Today’s high tides could be the norm within next 50 years, coastal experts and groups predict.


By Parimal M. Rohit


SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — A manag- er with the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Center told atten- dees at a Jan. 29 seminar in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida marina and boat- yard operators could face increasing costs to maintain, retrofit or upgrade their respective venues to prepare for or respond to the impacts of sea level rise. Pam Rubinoff, who is also a coastal specialist with Rhode Island Sea Grant, spoke at last month’s International Marina and Boatyard Conference in southern Florida said today’s high and king tides would be the new normal by the turn of the century. Higher tides could mean more coastal flooding and elevated water levels at marinas and harbors. Her outlook and advice were not limited to boaters and marina opera- tors in Rhode Island or on the East Coast. Local environmental groups in


Southern California have recently been echoing Rubinoff’s prediction of today’s high tides becoming the average level within the next 50 to 100 years. Orange County


Coastkeeper echoed Rubinoff’s concerns at a recent press meeting during the most recent king tides on Jan. 21. Ray Hiemstra, OC


Coastkeeper’s associate direc- tor of programs, said the most recent king tides events resulted in a 6-foot increase in sea level. The sea level at the peak of this year’s king tides events would be the average watermark during low tides in the next 50 to 100 years, he said.


The most recent king tides events leave many questions unanswered. How serious is predicted sea level rise? Are public agencies tak- ing preventative steps to limit the impacts of sea level rise (or keep the event from happening altogether)? What can marina operators do to be prepared for any rise in sea levels? Rubinoff, according to news


Water levels are measured at Newport Harbor, where city officials recently began addressing sea level rise and coastal flooding. Newport Beach hopes to develop a plan to address the harbor’s aging seawalls soon.


reports, said marinas and boatyards can take steps to prepare for predicted sea level rise, such as installing flexible floating docks with pilings, storing important documents in elevated loca- tions and finding ways to keep boats secure whenever the water level rises. An environmental law and policy


fellow and Environmental Law Center director from UCLA School of Law published a report on how govern- mental agencies could combat sea- level rise. The report stated the Southern California coast is highly sus- ceptible to coastal flooding and sea- level rise. “Research projects sea levels on the


Southern California coast will rise 5 to 24 inches above 2000 levels by 2050,”


stated Megan Herzog and Sean Hecht of UCLA School of Law in their pub- lished report. “Rising sea levels threat- en thousands of coastal residents and billions of dollars of coastal property with increased risk of flooding, storm damage, shoreline erosion, saltwater intrusion ant wetland loss. “The impacts of sea level rise will be acute along the densely developed Southern California Bight, which spans from Point Conception to the Mexico border,” Herzog, UCLA’s Emmett/Frankel Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy, and Hecht, the law school’s Environmental Law Center executive director, contin- ued.


Herzog and Hecht added Southern


California’s biggest challenge is to pre- pare its urbanized coast for sea level rise.


California’s state legislatures have


certainly begun looking into how to legislate potential sea level rise and coastal flooding. A California Assembly committee


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published a sea level rise report in August 2014 claiming the rising coast is “a slow-moving emergency.” “Sea level rise is expected to cause many facilities servicing commercial fisheries – from ports, harbors, jetties and breakwaters, marinas, and panoply of service facilities,” the 2014 report by the Assembly’s Select Committee on Sea Level Rise and the California Economy stated. The 10-member select committee, which was chaired by Assemblyman Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park) and included state legislators such as Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), said coastal flooding and sea level rise would place some segments of the California econ- omy and infrastructure, such as fish- ing, ports, wastewater treatment, beaches, wetlands and coastal aquifers, at risk. The committee stated a few ques- tions must be answered during the planning process, such as the most appropriate locations to “armor the coast,” where is adaptation necessary, and what areas to designate as ideal for retreat from the coastal zone. Complicating the state’s response to


predicted sea level rise, according to the select committee, is a lack of fund- ing.


“Responding to sea level rise will be


costly,” the committee’s report stated. “Currently there is … insufficient fund- ing to support local governments and others in assessing vulnerabilities, planning and reducing risk. In fact, applicants to the Coastal Commission’s Local Coastal Program Assistance Grant Program requested [more than] five times the amount in available funding.” Hiemstra said we should expect sea


levels increase by 2 feet within the next 35 years but there are steps we can take now to minimize the impacts. “We expect to see 2 feet of sea level


rise by 2050 and that alone will have significant impacts on our coastal areas,” Hiemstra said. “In the short run we need to figure out how to deal with 2 feet of rise, we can assume that is unstoppable. In the longer run we need to try to slow sea level rise by reducing the use of fossil fuels that produce the greenhouse gasses that are speeding climate change.” Hiemstra said both man and nature


are to blame for climate change. “It is important to note that while some climate change is natural, the high speed change we are seeing is fueled by our own actions. Over the long term we will also need to consider a strategy called ‘managed retreat’ where we decide what areas are so vul- nerable to sea level rise that we aban- don them,” Hiemstra said. Newport Beach and Huntington Beach will need higher seawalls,


See SEA LEVEL page 13


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Photo courtesy of OC Coastkeeper


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