'Sea Level Rise': real life disaster yarn

There's still a debate, of sorts, about whether the world's climate is changing, and how much of this is humanity's fault. On one fact, however, scientists are almost unanimous: Sea level is rising.

By the year 2100, the world's oceans will be 1.5 feet to 3 feet higher than they are now. (A United Nations science panel last month reported that the rate might be even worse than that as glaciers and ice sheets melt in Greenland and the Antarctic.) And while there's a bit of huffing and puffing, nobody is doing all that much about it.

That's the conclusion of "Sea Level Rise," a brief, bleak tome by Orrin and Keith Pilkey.

Orrin Pilkey, 85, a retired Duke University geologist, has been a thorn in the side of coastal developers for decades, arguing that overbuilding on the coast is accelerating erosion. He's hardly slowing down; just last month, he and journalist Gilbert Gaul ("The Geography of Risk") gave a joint program at the Pine Valley Library. Keith Pilkey, his son, is a federal administrative law judge.

According to them: We've got trouble, right here in Coastal City, and building some extra seawalls and pumping some more sand is not going to fix things.

The trouble is, the problem is a bit like the image of the frog in the frying pan. The headaches are building slowly, the Pilkeys note, so that most of us don't notice them, or notice them urgently.

Sure, Water Street and Battleship Road flood a lot more often than they used to. This is known as tidal flooding (often happening at high tides), nuisance flooding or "sunny day flooding," and it's a byproduct of sea level rise. It's already a serious issue in places like Charleston, S.C., or Miami Beach.

But worse is slowly coming. (The Pilkeys call it a "slow tsunami.") Already native villages in Alaska are disappearing as waters rise and the permafrost underneath them melts. Barrier islands and marshlands off the coast of Louisiana are vanishing at an alarming rate. Whole nations on Pacific atolls will soon be underwater.

By the end of this century, the Pilkeys write, New Orleans and Miami will be "doomed." The Big Easy is largely below sea level already and its levees can only hold back so much. Miami is close to sea level, and it's built on porous limestone easily permeated and eaten away by seawater.

The costs will be enormous. Cities such as New York and Boston, with low elevation and with many neighborhoods built on old landfills, will have to erect enormous sea walls. (The Pilkeys are no fans of seawalls, since they accelerate beach erosion, but the cities will have little choice.) The loss of coastal marshlands will be disastrous for commercial fishing. Already, many farms in North Carolina's Albemarle and Pamlico Sound regions have been ruined by saltwater intrusion.

By mid-century, hundreds of thousands of coastal residents could be displaced from their homes. The Pilkeys call them "climate change refugees."

Readers of "The Rising Sea," "The Last Beach" and other books by Orrin Pilkey can guess the authors' conclusion. The only rational response to this long-term crisis will be an orderly retreat from the shoreline. Bar development on barrier islands. Buy up waterfront properties, then move or demolish them.

Wastewater treatment plants, ports and other facilities will have to be moved at great cost. (Already the Norfolk Navy Yard, the world's largest naval base, is plagued by tidal flooding.) And what is to be done about the 13 nuclear power plants on America's Southeastern coast?

The trouble is, the Pilkeys note, that beachfront property owners have money and political clout, and will fight for more beach nourishment, more seawalls and groins. Eventually, though, the price tag will grow too high for ordinary taxpayers to bear.

Wilmington draws guarded praise from the Pilkeys for its efforts to contain tidal flooding. However, North Topsail Beach is dismissed as "the most unstable barrier island segment for development on the East Coast and the most endangered by sea level rise."

The Pilkeys' penchant for worst-case scenarios (melting Arctic wastes releasing ancient plagues such as anthrax or Spanish flu) could let them be tagged as alarmist. Most of "Sea Level Rise," however, is careful, thoughtful, conservative — and profoundly disturbing.

Ben Steelman can be reached at 910-343-2208 or [email protected].

Sea Level Rise

A Slow Tsunami on America's Shores

Orrin H. Pilkey and Keith C. Pilkey

Duke University Press, $24.95 paperback