storm fills region with
Officials in wake of coastal surge: Build that sea wall
The freezing floodwaters that swamped downtown Boston when yesterday’s powerful winter storm collided with a record high tide has created new momentum to guard against climate change — including constructing a $10 billion sea barrier in the harbor.
“If anyone wants to question global warming, just see where those flood zones are,” said Mayor Martin J. Walsh at a press conference, adding that developers need to take flooding into account as they build more projects on the waterfront. “It’s something we have to talk more about moving forward.”
The city’s Climate Ready Boston report raised the possibility of building a sea wall, and City Councilor Lydia Edwards — whose district includes waterfront-heavy Charlestown, East Boston and the North End — said it’s not a farfetched idea.
“Nothing is off the table in terms of what we need to look at,” Edwards said, adding that a sea wall would be a “short-term” response compared to long-term efforts to reduce greenhouse gas consumption and slow global warming.
“I don’t think we needed this (the storm) to say we need to look at this seriously; this is a continued reminder that we cannot kick the can — this is directly impacting us right now,” said Edwards.
She is also supporting more sustainable development on the waterfront.
But constructing a sea wall is a costly and complicated prospect — with one estimate putting the bill at $10 billion.
Such a barrier would run from the tip of Logan International Airport to South Boston. A more ambitious wall being eyed would encompass the Harbor Islands or stretch as far out as the coast of Hull.
Such a barrier is used in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and is under development in Venice.
It would almost certainly require federal funds, and the Trump administration has been reluctant to acknowledge the concept of climate change.
Still, Walsh received high marks from environmentalist Bill McKibben, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont.
“Thanks to global warming, the ocean is higher than it used to be — there’s no scientific dispute about that,” McKibben told the Herald. “Therefore, when a big storm pushes it toward the city, it goes farther in. Since so much of Boston used to literally be ocean, before it was all filled in, this should not be hard to understand. I’d say His Honor gets a solid A in Earth science.”