ASBPA & CSO Joint Coastal Policy Part 4: A discussion of Shoreline Development

Derek Brockbank  0:00  
Welcome to the capitol beach. My name is Derek brockbank. I'm your host of the capital beach. And we are coming today for Episode Four or segment four of a five part series on American shore and beach preservation Association and coastal state organizations, joint policy on beach and inlet management. I'm joined again by Rachel Keylon, the Federal Affairs Director for CSO, and Tony Pratt, the president for ASB EPA, really excited to be again talking about one of these critical issues critical policy issues facing our coastline. Today we're gonna be talking about development basically, where we should be building and where we shouldn't be building and how we can change policy to address that. I'm really glad to be talking with my past organization as BPA in my current organization coastal states organization. So, before we dive in quick word from our sponsors,

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Derek Brockbank  1:40  
Okay, great. Thank you. Again, really excited to have Rachel Keylon with CSO and Tony Pratt with ASBPA and we're talking about point number four or Segment Number Four development along the coastline. Obviously a critical policy component to how we manage our beaches, and shores and inlets is is where we place buildings and structures and infrastructure. A lot of issues to go into here. Rachel, maybe you want to kick this off and talk a bit about what this policy is asking for at a very high level before we dive into some of the specific bullets.

Rachel Keylon  2:14  
Yeah, great, thanks. So this policy recognizes that our coasts are facing big changes with sea level rise, Lake level change and increasing coastal storm intensity, which really all drive additional coastal hazards, including erosion and inundation. This policy is recommending measures to responsibly plan for these increasing coastal hazards in coastal development, to address issues, existing high risk coastal development and to utilize resilience of natural systems for infrastructure and coastal adaptation.

Derek Brockbank  2:49  
Thanks, Rachel. And you mentioned Lake level change. This is probably something we should have referenced in each of our different segments. But we do consider the coastal zone as the Coastal Zone Management Act does. We do consider Great Lakes states and right now Great Lakes are facing some rapidly rising levels, or at least some of the lakes are have been. And some of the challenges that our all our coastlines are going to face with sea level rise have been seen sort of most immediately on the Great Lakes coast. And I think what we'll be talking about today certainly applies there. And I think some of the challenges that they're facing, and maybe some of the policy solutions that might might help them on the Great Lakes coast will be influential on the the saltwater coasts too, as you said, a changing environment. The coastlines are dynamic, and we need to reflect that in how we make policy decisions about where people should and should not build. We got six different bullet points in here. Each of them have some sub bullets. So if this conversation piques your curiosity, I'd encourage you go to the ASPCA or coastal states website and check out the full policy. But the first policy that we are going to dig into is, as a number of them are relate to FEMA. And so I'm actually gonna go ahead and read this out because it's a little bit complicated, but I want to dig into it and have Rachel explain this a little bit. So what we recommend is that FEMA should provide funding for relocation or removal of structures that are under imminent threat of collapse due to shoreline erosion, and or title scouring, including by we offered to two pieces here authorizing National Flood Insurance claims for structures under eminent threat, and establishing a FEMA program to pay for relocation or removal of structures under eminent threat of loss due to coastal erosion. So, Rachel, what is this policy mean? How is this different from sort of the way and if IP works already and then why is it important?

Rachel Keylon  4:40  
Yeah, great. So this policy is really addressing an existing gap in addressing shoreline erosion as a significant coastal hazard. So, while we have some things that are addressing coastal hazard, for example, the Army Corps are not coastal hazard but shoreline erosion. For example, the Army Corps can address erosion With erosion control measures such as sea walls and other hardened structures are living shorelines and natural infrastructure. And FEMA has hazard mitigation programs that can be used to implement some erosion control these really, there's really no federal program to assist property owners who have properties that are experiencing severe erosion, including severe chronic erosion, such that relocation or removal of the property is really the safe, safest and best option. So think of a house that used to be set back from cliffs along the coast but are now about to fall off of them due to chronic coastal erosion. Here, the burden falls solely on the property owners in the states to address them, because there really isn't any federal program. So the lack of a federal program to address this issue really leaves property owners in a sticky spot with a property that is unsafe, but they may not be able to leave it because they can't resell the property. Even if the property owner does leave and is able to absorb the loss of the property, the structure still remains and is an imminent hazard of collapse and basically into the ocean. So this policy is recommending that FEMA utilize and expand the existing National Flood Insurance Program, which addresses flooding issues, but you know, doesn't cover or erosion at this point. But it says it helps assist property owners and addressing flooding when it occurs on their property. So here, we're basically suggesting that they also assist owners in work who have erosion impacting their properties. We're also really recommending that FEMA establish a new program that would provide assistance for the relocation or removal of structures that are threatened by coastal erosion. These two policies together, in complement will enable property owners many of which purchase their properties long before erosion was a threat to really relocate their homes or other structures and to make or to make the hard decision to leave their property and have it removed without having to absorb the full cost of this. So ultimately, this will prevent owners from maintaining property gravity until it's essentially falling into the ocean. And property removal will enable states to prevent redevelopment on these properties that are experiencing high, higher erosion and implement better set x.

Derek Brockbank  7:26  
So I think this Yeah, thank you, Rachel, this, this really does dress two issues, as you mentioned, two gaps, sort of an existing policy. One is where there are homes that are not in flood zones, but are essentially threatened by flooding in inundation. So if you can think of houses on the top of cliffs or Bluffs, you know, if you can picture those sort of iconic houses in California, or along the, you know, Lake Michigan shoreline, I was talking with Tony earlier, and he reminded me that, you know, there's even some pretty high level bluffs out in in Cape Cod in Massachusetts. So it's not just a West Coast and Great Lakes issue. They're not in a flood zone, right there. They're very high elevation. But the scouring that waves and the shoreline due to due to those cliffs and Bluffs, put those houses under threat, but since they don't have flood insurance, they don't have sort of a national policy to help them relocate. The other piece that I think is really important here is is authorizing claims for structures under eminent threat, not that have already been damaged. And so one of the challenges is if if, if, if you have the flood insurance and your building has been damaged, or your house has been damaged, you can work with FEMA to get money to relocate, you don't necessarily have to rebuild as it is. But the problem is that money only comes because it's insurance, it only comes after the damage is done. So if you've got a situation where, you know, a retired couple is looking to leave, you know, leave their house and their houses in this, you know, coastal erosion zone. But it has not been damaged yet. They can't access any funding from FEMA. So from so they need to sell that house and maybe the new the new family that moves in gets damaged a year later. Well, they don't want to move. So you've got a situation where the people that are interested in moving aren't able to access FEMA funding for a house that you know that that is, is definitely under imminent threat. So trying to address that challenge. So we'll keep running through some of these we've got some a bunch of policies in here. We certainly highlight the new building resilient infrastructure communities, the brick program at FEMA, which we highlight is a really good new program to help support resilience programs and making sure that natural infrastructure is part of that we talk about how FEMA can better align the community rating system credits to help manage beach communities at a system better. But the next one we want to talk about is actually goes beyond just FEMA and I think this one is really important as we we see a new administrator Come in. And that's requiring that all federally funded programs and all federal grant programs for coastal adaptation and relocation. So these programs can be administered through the department of transportation, housing and urban development. You know, these aren't your sort of traditional environmental or coastal agencies, but they do administer grant programs, or provide federal funding for coastal infrastructure or coastal housing, we want to make sure that those programs are allowing for beach migration and allowing for public trust access and making sure there's uses. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what this means. And I'll turn to Tony to provide some context for you know, how this might play out locally. So this is the idea that, you know, if you have a coastal road, there may be money from Department of Transportation to to help that road adapt to sea level rise. But if you simply elevate that road, and the coastline, which had been a budding that road, now retreats, that coastline becomes literally underneath the road, and therefore, you lose much of the value of that coastline. Right. So if you've got a beach, on one side of road, you cross the road, you use the beach, but if that beach retreats to be underneath and elevated road, that beach loses a significant amount of its value. And so we want to make sure that agencies are thinking about what the value is of the coastline when they think about how to adapt the infrastructure in place. So certainly a complicated thing. I don't think we have a specific policy prescription for each agency, we just want to make sure that each agency is thinking about how they plan their adaptation to sea level rise into inundation into coastal storms, in a way that maintains the sort of the full value of the coastline, because coastline is sort of a, you know, is is a public as a public right in in many states and at least to some level across the nation. Tony, big broad topic there, I would love your two cents, you've been working on coastal challenges on the Bay Shore on the ocean side and Delaware for decades. I'm sure this is something that you've you've come across or at least thought about. So any any thoughts on this issue?

Tony Pratt  12:11  
Yeah, it's been middlee been very frustrating, I think over the years to see, having worked closely with the Corps, and, and secondarily, with FEMA over the years after storms, to mitigate against the dynamics at the coast dynamics being erosion of land, erosion of Bluffs, episodic events that like Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Katrina, that drive the train on this because of these major disasters, when when so much change occurs. And there is the impetus to many of the of the national efforts to restore roads, restore bridges, restore everything immediately to what it was the day before the storm, while and the communities to you know, they've zoned land to be this is residential land, this is commercial land. And that's the expectation that will stay in that net condition forever. We know that the dynamics of the coast, these lands through the dynamics of the coast, these lands are temporary, it may be an decadal or even century timeframes, but they are temporary lands. And it doesn't it doesn't bode well to say that 100 years from now, South Bethany Delaware, oceanfront will still be in the same position, it probably will not be 100 years ago, it wasn't the same as it is today. We just have to look back in time. So aligning and, you know, the the agency directives to say, understand that there is dynamic conditions at the coast that there is change afoot, that there is temporary nature to these lands. And we should be planning for this. And I'm very much encouraged by the new administration coming in the Biden administration, that there's going to be tremendous emphasis on climate change. On the one side, those elements carbon specifically that drive a warming climate, but also on the other side, the consequences of the warming that has occurred, and the dynamic changes that will occur into the future because of, of what has already occurred and what continued can occur over the next several decades. So aligning the response mentality of all the aforementioned agencies is imperative. It really is because it's got to change from what it's been, and stop incentivizing reoccupation of lands that should be considered to be temporary.

Derek Brockbank  14:41  
That's a great point. Just the I love that line. The reoccupation of lands that are inevitably are intended to be temporary. We need to make sure that we are thinking about where the coast will be and 50 and 100 years from now, not where it has been. And that's probably something we always should have been doing. Even without climate change and sea level rise. The coast is a dynamic system, but certainly with sea level rise, it becomes even more imperative. And yes, the idea that this is this is not just a, you know, coastal engineers, you know, this is more than just NOAA and Department of Interior and Army Corps working on it, this is going to be something that Department of Transportation and human resource, Housing and Urban Development. And similarly at a state level, right, it's not just going to be your your coastal programs, obviously, the state coastal programs lead this effort, but they're going to need to integrate with, with whatever their state transportation offices are to. Rachel, speaking of the states on this, we don't specifically have a call for states to address this broadly. But is there anything else you'd like to share or bring up around how state coastal programs can be working with some of these federal agencies to address migrating coastlines?

Rachel Keylon  15:53  
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that the Coastal Zone Management programs are actively engaged in addressing coastal issues of all sorts. And so and they're actively working with the federal agencies. So I think that they're definitely the right people to be on tap to be working on this issue.

Derek Brockbank  16:13  
And I added that I think a lot of them have, either are or have planning departments. I know, one of the past presidents of coastal states organization, Leo Asuncion was actually the head of the planning office and planning was more than just coastal planning. Although in a state like Hawaii, it's hard to imagine that there's much planning that's being done that isn't somewhat related to coastal so. Well, thank you all for listening. I think we've probably reached the end of this. Hopefully, this piqued your curiosity on on what ASPCA and CSR were advocating in terms of development coastal development, so do check out our joint policy on beach and inlet management on either the ASPCA or coastal states website. And I hope you have had a chance to listen to our previous previous segments on segment management on permitting and funding. And I hope you'll tune into our next segment on coastal research and science. Thanks so much for joining us today.