Sea-level rise fight ramped up

600 come to Fort Lauderdale to find solutions for climate change

About 600 government officials, environmental leaders and business executives gathered in Fort Lauderdale last week to discuss how to fight sea-level rise and other effects of the warming climate.

The meeting took place at the Broward County Convention Center, just yards from the upward creeping waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Held by the southeast Florida counties of Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach, the conference focused on ground-level impacts of climate change and what could be done to deal with their financial, social and environmental effects.

“Our commitment to climate leadership in South Florida is deep, and we are acting with urgency,” said U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat who represents parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, in an address to the group.

“Many throughout the country are rightfully worried about climate change. They might sit back and wonder how it will affect their communities one day way out there in the future.

“But we need not wait, and in fact, in South Florida we cannot wait. Climate change is already here for Floridians. The effects have hit Florida first. That’s why our work here is so important.”

The four counties established the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact to share ideas and research, coordinate policies and take other steps to share resources as the Atlantic Ocean slowly rises. The organization has been lauded as a national model for local efforts to cope with climate change, particularly given President Trump’s reversal of federal climate change policies.

“The void left by the president and his administration to decrease carbon emissions is being filled,” Deutch said. “It’s being filled by state and local government leaders. It’s being filled by leaders in the business community. It’s quite frankly being filled by people just like all of us in this room.”

Keren Bolter, a South Florida sea-level rise expert who is senior planner for Arcadis, a Dutch water infrastructure company, said the conference’s increased size likely resulted from several factors that showed the costs of climate change were more than theoretical.

These include Hurricane Irma and a November report from the Moody’s credit agency that said local governments that fail to ad-

dress sea-level rise can expect worsened credit ratings, making it more expensive for them to borrow money.

“Irma was a gamechanger,” she said. “And with Moody’s, all of a sudden cities have to worry about their credit rating being downgraded.”

At the conference, officials from local South Florida governments described practical steps that have been taken to accommodate higher sea levels.

Broward County is updating various maps that govern construction of buildings, roads and other infrastructure, taking into account projections of sealevel rise, said Jennifer Jurado, the county’s chief climate resilience officers. The map of groundwater elevation, for example, affects standards for new construction. As sea level rises, it raises ground water, increasing the frequency and severity of flooding because the soil is less able to absorb rain water.

Jon Van Arnam, deputy county administrator for Palm Beach County, said the county has created an office of resilience and has moved to streamline permitting of solar projects. It is adding provisions to county planning documents to take sea-level rise into account in land development and new infrastructure. It’s taking steps to reduce energy consumption, including synchronizing traffic lights and installing more efficient lighting at sports fields.

In the Keys, the Monroe County government is working on elevating some of the county’s 300 miles of roads — not counting U.S. 1, said Rhonda Haag, the county’s sustainability and projects director. The work is expensive, she said, with a cost of nearly $1 million per mile to elevate a road by six inches.