Rising sea levels, erosion endanger historic lighthouses in U.S., world

MAURICE RIVER TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Rising seas and erosion are threatening lighthouses around the U.S. and the world. Volunteers and cashstrapped governments are doing what they can, but the level of concern, like the water, is rising.

New Jersey’s East Point Lighthouse has been lighting up Delaware Bay for the better part of two centuries. But those same waters that the lighthouse helped illuminate might bring about its demise.

With even a moderate-term fix likely to cost $3 million or more, New Jersey officials are considering what to do to save the lighthouse. Nancy Patterson, president of the Maurice River Historical Society, says something needs to be done now.

State and local governments routinely shore up the perimeter of the lighthouse property with 3,000-pound sand bags and hastily bulldozed earthen walls. During normal conditions, the bay is about 40 yards from the lighthouse; satellite photos from 1940 show at least four times as much beach between the lighthouse and the bay as there is now.

And during storms, the surf pounds against an earthen wall just 10 yards from the lighthouse’s front steps.

Patterson recently led a save-the-lighthouse rally to call attention to its plight and push the state Department of Environmental Protection to do something to save it before it falls into the bay.

It’s a threat affecting lighthouses around the country and the world, including those in low-lying areas being inundated by water, as well as those on bluffs or cliffs being eroded by storms and rising sea levels.

“It’s happening faster than anybody had predicted,” said Jeff Gales, executive director of the U.S. Lighthouse Society in Hansville, Wash.

While some of the lighthouses continue to be relied upon for navigation, others have been supplanted by more modern technology, and are treasured more for historical and tourism purposes.

Climate change hastened by man-made greenhouse gases is not only melting polar ice, adding to sea levels, but the warmer waters are expanding and some land formations sinking.

Globally, sea levels have been rising over the past century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the rate has increased in recent decades. In New Jersey, seas have risen by 1.3 feet over the past 100 years, said Benjamin Horton, a Rutgers University professor and leading expert on climate change and sea level rise. That is a faster pace than for the past 2,000 years combined, he said.

Tim Harrison is the editor of Lighthouse Digest, a Mainebased publication that maintains a “Doomsday List” of 53 lighthouses around the U.S. deemed to be in danger of being lost due to storms, erosion or other causes.

“Lighthouses were built for one purpose: to save lives,” he said. “Now it’s our turn to step up save these lighthouses.”