Florida, U.S. have failed our coasts.
As Hurricane Irma churns toward the United States, what are the detrimental effects of intensive building along beaches in Florida and other states? The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board sought out Robert S. Young, a professor of coastal geology at Western Carolina University and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, who has testified before Congress about coastal issues. A full transcript can be found at OrlandoSentinel.com/Opinion.
Q: Central Floridians are riveted to Hurricane Irma’s path. Your thoughts?
A: You’re going to be relatively fine where you are — that’s my sense. Even if Irma turns to the north and comes up the East Coast, it’s going to sort of be like Matthew: It’s going to sideswipe everything. You can’t build a significant storm surge if Irma goes parallel to the coast and doesn’t come straight onshore. That doesn’t mean that there would be no damage, but Matthew would be the best analog. Most computer models used by the National Hurricane Center are showing a track that will likely interact with the Leeward Isles, Greater Antilles and/or Bahamas before reaching the U.S. mainland. This would serve to limit the storm surge for any impacts to southeastern Florida. Hurricane Andrew (1992) generated only an 8-foot storm surge, but the winds were crazy. I think the biggest worry for Florida would be if Irma shoots through between Cuba and Florida, enters the Gulf, and then turns north. If Irma spends two or three days before heading straight to the Florida Panhandle, or if it crosses perpendicularly up in the Panhandle and into the Big Bend area of Florida, there could be a massive, incredibly destructive storm surge. Keep in mind that the above discussion is focusing on storm surge. If Irma is a Category 4 or 5 storm, then any area near the eye wall will experience severe wind hazard as with Andrew.
Q: The federal government replenishes beaches. In Florida, there’s a proposal to spend at least $50 million a year on nourishment. Is this a wise investment?
A: In the long run, I would disagree that beach nourishment is a good investment for federal taxpayers. The big problem is that we’ve never really had a national discussion as to where it makes sense to spend federal dollars to provide coastal protection and where it doesn’t. So that’s problematic. It may be that, as a country, we decide there are some places where there is an overriding federal interest to fund coastal protection. But we cannot protect every inch of U.S. shoreline on the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts forever. We have to make some choices.
If Florida wants to spend the money, and if localities pitch in their own money, at least the economic calculus would be a lot more realistic. It could be worth it for the state of Florida to spend significant dollars on beach-nourishment projects to support the tax base and tourism and that kind of industry in that portion of the economy. It’s probably not in the best economic interest of the state to spend that kind of money on every beach. If you look at South Beach, Miami — those beaches last pretty long, and they’re tied to the value of the real estate there, and the economy. That beach is probably worth just about whatever it would cost to keep it there. When you get to smaller resort communities, the economic calculus becomes a bit trickier.
Q: What are some of the other ways the taxpayers subsidize coastal development?
A: The Federal Flood Insurance Program is one. Publicly funded beach-nourishment projects and the shore-protection projects are another. The fact that the federal government will pour funds into a community after a disaster is another. When the U.S. is hit by a hurricane and the president declares a disaster area, it triggers a lot of federal funds that can help rebuild the power grid, the roads —and even federal funds to rebuild the beaches — all of which subsidize the risk of building in high-hazard areas.
If the real cost of building on the oceanfront had to be borne by homeowners, business owners, investors or communities, then the property values probably would be different. That is just the matter of truth. With all these federal programs, we have to come in and rebuild after storms, to help put beaches in front of homes, to subsidize federal flood insurance.
Q: Do any other states take a better approach than Florida toward coastal development?
A: Florida is pretty bad, and there are not a lot of shining examples. North and South Carolina, and Maine, ban seawalls and the use of hard structures to protect coasts, an acknowledgment that they damage the beach in the long run, create more problems than they solve. There are many places up and down the coast that limit the scale of development, yet in Florida there are still very, very large development projects going on the oceanfront. That’s the first thing that communities need to think about stopping.
Q: What is the most critical issue facing beaches in Florida and the United States?
A: We have no national vision or national leadership for how to manage the nation’s coasts. So we spend billions of dollars on coastal-protection projects and to rebuild, but we do almost all of that spending reflexively, after a storm. So, where are we spending the most money doing coastal protection today, right now, this year? In New Jersey and New York. Why there? Because that’s where Sandy hit. Where were the last places we spent a ton of money on coastal protection? Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Why? That’s where Katrina hit. It’s reactive; it’s not proactive; it’s actually not fair.
When you spend those kinds of federal dollars, you’re not sitting back and thinking, “Where can we get the most bang for our buck?” Because of that, Florida has missed out on a substantial amount of federal spending in the past 10 years. The Army Corps of Engineers is spending $4 billion in New Jersey and New York. I bet some members of Congress from Florida would have liked to get a hold of some of that funding. And the reason it’s all being spent in New York and New Jersey is because we have no national plan for how we should spend federal dollars, where we should spend them and how we’re going to make those decisions. It’s a massive failure of leadership.