Road to Nowhere
Legal challenges in protecting coastal infrastructure.
Adapting to sea level rise is a challenging business and it's made harder by our complicated legal system. An important discussion today on the Coastal Conundrum Podcast.
Coastal local governments are working to develop plans and strategies to adapt to rising seas and increase resilience of community infrastructure, especially roads. Many plans involve protecting, elevating, realigning and even abandoning coastal roads. However, implementing adaptation strategies can be stymied by the current complex and often conflicting legal framework of duties, immunities, and takings law surrounding those decisions.
Join host Bill O'Beirne and his guests Shana Jones and Thomas Ruppert -- two legal experts that specialize in the law of coastal adaptation -- for a deep discussion on the legal framework needed to assist coastal states and communities as they work to meet the challenges of sea level rise and coastal flooding.
- Link to: Shana Jones, Thomas Ruppert, Erin Deady, Heather Payne, Scott Pippin, Ling-Yee Huang, and Jason Evans, Roads to Nowhere in Four Jurisdictions: States and Local Governments in the Southeast Facing Sea-Level Rise, 44 Columb. J. Envtl. L 67 (2019)
- Link to Georgia Sea Grant Legal Program
- Link to Florida Sea Grant Coastal Planning Program
- Link to Florida Sea Grant Webpage with “Policy Tools”
- Link to Florida Sea Grant webpage with “Example Sea-Level Rise Language & Case Studies” from Florida Sea Grant
- Link to Thomas Ruppert, Castles—and Roads—in the Sand: Do All Roads Lead to a “Taking”?, 48 Envt’l L. Reporter 10914 (2018):
- Link to Thomas Ruppert, Erin L. Deady, Jason Evans, Crystal Goodison, Legal Issues When Managing Public Roads Affected by Sea Level Rise: FLORIDA (Spring 2019)
