Economy

Washington Faces a $24B Bill to Avert Disaster From Future Sea-Level Rise

Seattle is expected to pay the most among Washington cities confronting a climate-change high-tide tax, study finds

By Bill Conroy June 20, 2019

This is the part of the seawall that was repaired after a severe storm left the line hanging february 2014 and closed the railway. Strong southerly to easterly winds around high tide waves hit the seawall and engulf trains and track as can be seen in the image.

The debate around climate change and its causes is often contentious, at least in political circles, particularly when the stakes are abstract. But a new study by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) adds a dose of reality to the debate with a ranking of states and communities based on the cost of protecting coastal communities from rising sea levels.

The study offers an estimated rising sea-level adaption cost by state, and by jurisdictions within states, and Washington ends up with a whopping bill, as does Seattle. Washington ranked seventh nationally in terms of the projected cost of building seawalls by 2040 to address rising sea levels driven by climate change at $23.9 billion.

The study by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a climate-action advocacy group, was conducted in partnership with engineering firm Resilient Analytics. Overall, the CCI study projects that more than 50,000 miles of coastal barriers will have to be constructed in 22 states by 2040 at an estimated total cost of more than $400 billion.

Our collective failure to come to grips with the massive costs of climate adaptation is the latest and most delusional form of climate denial, says Richard Wiles, executive director of CCI.

A ranking of cities in Washington based on projected seawall construction costs puts Seattle first, with an estimated bill of $716 million by 2040. The CCI analysis does note that some communities, such as Miami Beach and portions of Broward County in South Florida; Charleston, South Carolina; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and San Francisco have already begun raising seawalls and other barriers in response to chronic flooding from rising sea levels.

Seattle, too, is in that boat, via the citys 0.7-mile, $410 million seawall rebuild project along the Elliott Bay waterfront, which was completed in 2017 as part of the larger waterfront redevelopment effort. The study, notes, however, that seawalls alone will not address all the costs of climate-change adaptation.

The cost estimates presented here are just a small portion of the total adaptation costs these local and state governments will be forced to finance, says Paul Chinowsk, lead engineer for the CCI analysis.

Ranking first in the study is Florida, with a projected $75.9 billion bill for seawall construction by 2040, followed by Louisiana, $38.4 billion; North Carolina, $34.8 billion; and Virginia, $31.2 billion.

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