LISTEN: The Union of Concerned Scientists identified critical coastal infrastructure likely to flood at least twice each year by 2050 due to sea level rise. GPB's Benjamin Payne reports.
Ten pieces of key infrastructure in Coastal Georgia are projected to flood every other week, on average, by 2050 due to rising sea levels and tides, according to a new study conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which also found an additional five sites likely to flood twice annually by mid-century.
The science advocacy nonprofit analyzed the vulnerability of what it deemed “critical coastal infrastructure assets” in the U.S., concluding that a “medium” scenario of global sea level rise (3.2 feet) by 2050 would flood more than 1,600 sites nationwide at least twice per year, including 15 in Georgia.
“It is increasingly evident that much of the coastal infrastructure in the United States — including K–12 schools, electrical substations, emergency services, public housing, and brownfields — was built for a climate that no longer exists,” the group wrote in its national report, which urged for the phasing out of fossil fuels and the adoption of cleaner energy. “Assets that were safe when constructed are now at risk of being regularly inundated with seawater.”
The 10 sites in Georgia that the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded will flood, on average, 26 times per year by 2050 due to sea level rise include:
Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Camden County;
SeaGate Terminals' marine shipping warehouse in Savannah (1600 E. President St.);
BASF chemical processing plant in Savannah (1800 E. President St.);
Phillips 66 lubricants plant in Savannah (110 Forbes Rd.);
A wastewater treatment plant in Richmond Hill (1701 Elbow Swamp Rd.);
A wastewater treatment plant in Port Wentworth (no street address; located on Richmond Road near the Savannah River);
An electrical substation in Chatham County between Savannah and Garden City (near the intersection of U.S. Route 80 and Allen Boulevard);
LCP Chemicals hazardous waste Superfund site in Brunswick (4014 Ross Rd.);
Terry Creek Dredge Spoil Areas/Hercules Outfall hazardous waste Superfund site in Brunswick (no street address; located near the intersection of U.S. Highway 17 and F.J. Torras Causeway);
Solar Glynn solar energy farm (no street address; located near Brunswick Golden Isles Airport in Glynn County).
The five sites in Georgia that the group concluded will flood, on average, two times per year by 2050 due to sea level rise include:
St. Mark's Towers low-income senior housing complex in Brunswick (1 Towers Plaza);
Sapelo Island Post Office in McIntosh County (1 Long Tabby Lane);
An electrical substation on St. Simons Island (near the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and Arnold Road);
A wastewater treatment plant at a mobile home park in Glynn County (54 Holtz Rd.);
A former gas station “brownfield” site in Brunswick (3320 Glynn Ave.).
Transportation infrastructure — such as roads and bridges — was not included in the group's analysis, but rather buildings and sites across six categories: public and affordable housing, educational institutions, public safety and health, industrial contamination sites, energy infrastructure, and government facilities.
Union of Concerned Scientists climate researcher Astrid Caldas said that the degree of sea level rise through 2050 is already “mostly baked in” from past carbon emissions, stressing the need to take action now toward decarbonization in order to improve the prognosis for the second half of the century.
“We need to really fight for the reduction of emissions not only in the United States but globally, so that we can prevent the worst of the impacts of sea level rise — which [in] the second half of the century are going to depend on how much more emissions we pump into the atmosphere in the next 20 years,” she told GPB.
Owing to uncertainty around the amount of future emissions, the number of infrastructure sites vulnerable to twice-annual flooding in Coastal Georgia by the year 2100 varies widely: 28 under a low sea level rise scenario (1.6 feet), 78 under a medium scenario (3.2 feet), and 259 under a high scenario (6.5 feet).
“We always get upset to see the fossil fuel industry still trying to convince us that we need the fossil fuels that are actually destroying everything and impacting the whole world in terms of climate,” Caldas said. “They all think about their profits and their bottom line. But the people and the economy are just really being terribly impacted.”
Sea level rise threatens to exacerbate longstanding racial and socioeconomic inequities, the study found. A majority (54%) of the nation's flood-prone infrastructure by 2050 is located in disadvantaged communities (as identified by the federal government's Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool), despite those census tracts comprising only about one-third of the U.S. coastal population.
Researchers examined only sea level rise and tidal heights — meaning that actual flooding may be worse than projected, as the study did not analyze other adverse climate conditions such as hurricanes and storm surge, which are also being intensified by human-caused climate change.
