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How rising sea levels threaten the Blue Line
By adamg on Tue, 06/15/2021 - 9:19am
MBTA officials used to worry about Green Line flooding from the tiny Muddy River, but they might have bigger things to worry about, like the Atlantic Island flooding the Blue Line via Belle Isle Marsh, WBUR reports.
Say, isn't that right near the planned Suffolk Downs mega-development? Why yes, yes it is, but they've got a plan for that.
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Comments
I agree
I agree with the women in the article that rising seas means we need to retract from the coast.
100% agree with that statement.
Remember folks, the Sea always wins. *always*
What good are places that are surrounded by water barriers and become islands when the rest of the area is underwater.
Folks, sure storms will bring the seas closer.. but eventually it will be here PERMANENTLY.
I wonder about the Netherlands...
The Netherlands has been dealing with problems like this for centuries -- but I wonder how long it might be until the magnitude of their problems become overwhelming?
Head start helps a lot I think?
Imagine all the intractable property rights issues that would arise if the state were to decide to build a huge berm or whatever from Lynn to Cohasset. Regardless of the cost of building a physical barrier, the stakeholder objections are truly enormous. In the Netherlands, it's more a question of improving the existing infrastructure, which is a smaller giant problem. It's a bit like the interstate system - would it be feasible today to build a new interstate in the Northeast, saw from Portsmouth to Berlin NH?
I agree with Cybah. I like Boston OK but plan to move elsewhere when my kids are through school. We will receive no federal money to deal with sea level rise and it's going to bankrupt the city within 20-30 years. Americans will never, ever chose the greater good so there's no solution to climate change here, just ruin and collapse in our future.
Good point
Good point but they have been living there for centuries.. and part of their history/heritage is about windmills and keeping the water out.
But even they will have issues when the sea rising.. and I don't think a series of pumps will help.
And thats what we end up doing here. Remember most of Boston is landfill, so we're at a disadvantage already. We pump so much groundwater out to keep our city dry. What happens when the sea rises, where are we going to pump water when we're surrounded by it.
Retreat is all we can do. And think about making Beacon Hill an island. Cuz it will be. As will bunker hill.
Living on Metropolitan Hill...
... in Roslindale, we should be good to go for a few hundred years or so.
Agreed
but the tax load to cover all the city budget deficit that used to be paid for by the Back Bay, South End and Seaport is going to be horrific.
Interesting ideas on how to handle climate change
For anyone interested in real life seawall we've built in the US check out the new bedford hurricane barriers they built in the 60s, pretty interesting and they have been successful. Now it appears they might be too short as the sea levels rise, so we shall wait and see what happens...
We have technology now that
We have technology now that we didn't have in 1904. How about something like "The Chunnel" that connects France to England? It would be on a much smaller scale than that behemoth though. I just cannot picture 70,000 people a day using ferry service.