Notes From an Environmentalist. Coastal Roads; Our system is Broken, our heads in the Sand.

                 Our System is Broken;

                 Our Heads in the Sand    

On March 9, 2024 I tried to drive to Great Neck in Ipswich Massachusetts. But it was raining and we were experiencing what is called a proxigean tide, that occurs when the sun moon and earth are closest and in a line.

The night before the new moon had loomed a fourth larger than normal because it was 30,000 miles closer to earth than usual.  

I had to detour around Water Street and stand behind a dozen cars as we waited for about an hour for the tide to recede on the causeway to Great Neck. It is always best to avoid streets with names like Water, Atlantic Ave and Ocean drive during Proxigean tides, but I seldom follow such prudent advice.  

Further up the coast Rt 1a was underwater and houses were being inundated from Massachusetts through New Hampshire.

This was the fourth time this has happened this year, because of the Proxigean tides, which are precipitously rising. They will reach their 30-year peak in the 2030’s only seven years away. Then instead of only having eight or nine days of flooding per month we will have close to 15 days during which a storm could washout such coastal roads.

So the clock is clicking fast but what are we doing about it? Next to nothing. Our system is broken. We are locked in indecision. We haven’t decided whether we should raise such roads, build bridges or replace them with inland roads as the tides and seas continue to rise.

All of these potential solutions will require funding, political will and new more streamlined regulations. So we better get busy because 2030 is only seven short years away.