Fugate: Climate change needs to become priority

STORM COMING? Jim Shriner, Mill Creek Marine owner, said climate change warnings are causing small-business owners to incur “exorbitant costs” for insurance. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
STORM COMING? Jim Shriner, Mill Creek Marine owner, said climate change warnings are causing small-business owners to incur “exorbitant costs” for insurance. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

It’s time Rhode Islanders get serious about the threat climate change presents to property, roads and outdated drainage systems, says Grover Fugate, executive director of the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council.
Though there are plenty of skeptics, sea-level rise and extreme weather are signs that business, community and state leaders can’t afford to ignore, say Fugate and other environmental leaders.
“We have to get businesses and community and state leaders to discuss the risks and the potential solutions,” said Fugate, at a meeting of the Rhode Island Bays, Rivers and Watersheds Coordination Team at the Statehouse on Jan. 8. The meeting served as an update for about 50 legislators and state leaders on the R.I. Shoreline Change Special Area Management Plan, called Beach SAMP, a four-year project launched in April 2013.
While work on the SAMP is ongoing, the meeting primarily served as a call to action.
“We’d like to see businesses begin to make assessments of their structures and see if they’re capable of withstanding these intense storms,” Fugate said.
Whether Rhode Island’s business community is taking the climate change warnings seriously depends on which business you talk to.
“I’ve worked in the marine industry for more than 40 years and as far as the science, I think we are undergoing climate change,” said Tom Johnson, who was vice president of business development for Senesco Marine in North Kingstown for more than five years until he retired in December. “You can’t alter things as much as the industrial world as done without some ramifications.
“But I think climate change is way back on the list of things businesses have to deal with because it’s such a slow-moving event,” said Johnson.
“I haven’t noticed any sea-level rise in 40 years,” said Bill Munger, owner of Conanicut Marine Services in Jamestown. “Yes, I’m a ‘green’ guy,” said Munger. “But … I’m not convinced global warming is an issue I have to worry about today.”
Jim Shriner, owner of Mill Creek Marina in North Kingstown, also thinks climate change warnings are exaggerated.
“I don’t think there’s empirical, hard evidence for climate change. Who’s to say it’s not just a natural warming and cooling cycle?” said Shriner. “We’re incurring exorbitant costs for insurance, in my opinion, for premature and exaggerated predictions from the federal and state levels.”
Fugate, however, pointed to major flooding in the state in 2010 and the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy as warnings that preparation sooner, rather than later, is the best course of action to avoid loss of businesses and property.
New flood maps that impact insurance rates, which have risen dramatically in many cases, could be the spark that kicks the strengthening of structures into action, he said.
Such work might be stifled in some cases under a bill approved by the Senate recently that would delay for up to four years the implementation of sharp increases in premiums for previously grandfathered property owners facing increases or those located in areas newly mapped into the floodplain.
Some businesses are beginning to prepare for the impacts of climate change and other hazards by developing contingency plans, said Pam Rubinoff, a coastal-extension specialist for the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography and for the Rhode Island Sea Grant program.
“There’s been a big push by small and large businesses to prepare for a big storm or a power outage, including plans to colocate with another business in the event they have to leave their site,” said Rubinoff. •

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