Senior Counselor, Conservation Law Foundation (CLF)
It’s no news that Boston will likely face unprecedented environmental and public health threats associated with climate change. We know that sea levels will rise significantly. Even before rising sea levels start to threaten the Massachusetts coastline, we know that there is a high probability that the waterfront will see record storm surges. And we know that Boston is ranked as the sixth most vulnerable city in the nation for environmental damages associated with climate change.
Developers have proposed a large-scale luxury hotel complex out over the water at the end of Lewis Wharf in Boston’s North End—right in the center of the projected storm surge bull’s-eye. The complex will itself be significantly at risk to flooding and storm damage but also will be one likely to exacerbate risks of damage to existing properties and neighborhoods. The area already floods, and this project would increase flooding—not stop flooding.
While it is one thing for a developer to put its own capital, customers, and employees at risk by constructing in an unsound location, it is completely another matter if there is even a risk that the development would increase the severity or frequency of storm-related or climate change-related effects to others.
For many in the immediate vicinity and the North End, this is personal. But this is not merely a local development fight. For us at Conservation Law Foundation, this comes down to whether the City of Boston and the state are committed to taking real action to increase resiliency of the waterfront to climate change or whether it will be business as usual. Developers should not be allowed to build in high-risk flooding areas in the city; and development of present or former state tidelands should several the broadest public interests, not cater to private interests.
Increasingly intense and frequent storms surges and sea level rise are the new normal. The Lewis Wharf project and any other new waterfront development around Boston Harbor will define how seriously Massachusetts and the City of Boston intend to address and mitigate those coming threats. The proposed luxury hotel complex is not the right approach; it is irresponsible and dangerous to move forward with this project.
historian says
The plans for big building projects so close to sea level are delusional.
stomv says
Let’s pause for a moment and remember that the places in America with the lowest carbon footprint per person are all cities. It’s not even close. Transportation emissions are much lower. Home heating and cooling emissions are much lower. Solid waste and consumption is much lower. Electric use is much lower. If we are to reduce are carbon emissions, we are going to have to make it more attractive to live, work, and play in cities, so that more people make that choice.
Now, let’s observe where the densest cities are: New York, Chicago, Boston, Philly, DC, LA, Miami. Every single one of them is on the water. It’s not a coincidence — old school cities were built on the water for reasons of commerce.
This doesn’t mean its OK to build anything in any urban area or that bigger is always better. It does mean that we can’t reflexively argue against large development near the water, because that essentially precludes increasing density in the very physical and political spaces designed to support that kind of density.
SomervilleTom says
Perhaps our building codes need to specify that the structure tolerate something like a twenty-foot storm surge and associated waves.
This absolutely is a dilemma. If the projections are even close to accurate, then the current inner harbor is likely to be underwater within a century. I’m not sure it makes sense to build large structures, even on stilts, that are likely to be concrete and steel islands by 2100.
It is perhaps important to mention that a sea level rise of five feet is also likely to overwhelm our underground transit system in the absence of massive investment to protect it. The yellow area alongside the expressway southwest of Fort Point Channel is a vital Red Line yard, and the entire Seaport district is underwater in the above map — as is the entire area around Quincy Market and Long Wharf.
This issue is indeed worthy of a MUCH bigger conversation about climate change and our future. I fear we have already delayed too long to avoid many of these impacts.