Climate Crisis Comes Home

The sea level is rising faster in Humboldt Bay than anywhere else in California. The main route of 101 will face inundation in several places--including the strip that links Arcata and Eureka.  But there is no money to do what's necessary to make this corridor viable by raising or re-routing the roadway.  "Today there's not enough money to maintain what we already have," a Caltrans official said.

Those are a few highlights from two articles in this week's Mad River Union, covering Caltrans and Arcata officials Local Coastal Plan efforts to addresses some of the consequences of the climate crisis.

Until now, the mapping of low-lying areas has been motivated by preparing for possible earthquakes and tsunamis.  We see "Tsunami Zone" signs everywhere, including in the Arcata bottoms, miles of prime agricultural land that begins at the coast and ends up with housing developments.  That's just one low lying area bordering the sea or the bay.

So there are many vulnerable places, and it only takes one small entry point to flood acres of land.  Besides the Arcata-Eureka corridor, Caltrans identified three other highway sites that are especially vulnerable.  The Arcata Marsh with its local and migratory birds and its innovative sewage treatment system is also threatened, along with power generation and transmission, gas and water lines, as well as transportation.

Apart from the lack of funds to protect from some of these anticipated catastrophes,  there are the unprecedented solutions that involve competing bureaucracies on multiple levels of government.

But officials who gathered at a recent joint meeting on environmental problems and heard detailed analyses of coming challenges also heard a warning to get started on all this now or "The North Coast will find itself in tough competition for resources with other coastal regions," particularly the big and politically powerful ones like the Bay Area, Long Beach and San Diego.

It's all an indication of what many communities are facing.  But it's more specifically what we are facing, here at home.