By Jennifer Allen for the Coastal Review Online, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for North Carolina News Service

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Twenty-five coastal communities will have money from the state to better prepare for natural hazards.

The funding is geared to drive better-informed decision making at the local level and initiatives that reduce risk and vulnerability to flooding, storms and other effects of climate change.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality's Division of Coastal Management announced March 17 a total of $675,000 would be granted through the new Resilient Coastal Communities Program, launched in the fall to provide technical and financial help to governments in the state's 20 coastal counties to develop resilience efforts. The application deadline was Jan. 15.

"We wish we had the funding to have accepted all interested communities into the program, but we hope to secure additional funding to offer another round of Phase 1 and 2 funding in the future," Sam Burdick, coastal resilience coordinator with the Division of Coastal Management, recently told Coastal Review. The division received 30 applications representing 32 coastal communities - one application was submitted by three communities - for the first two phases of grant funding.

"Building resilience to natural hazards is vital for communities to help maintain quality of life, healthy growth, durable systems, and conservation of resources for present and future generations," Burdick explained. "However, a number of barriers to developing resilience to coastal risks exist, including economic and capacity constraints that have been exacerbated in recent times. Building more resilient communities requires careful, thorough planning efforts using sound, locally relevant data."

Burdick is from Duck on the Outer Banks and has a background in coastal science, policy, ecology, local and regional planning, and community outreach. Before joining the division, Burdick was the community planner and disaster recovery coordinator for the Eastern Carolina Council of Governments. She has been the coastal resilience coordinator with the division in Morehead City since February 2020 and is tasked with leading the development and implementation of the Resilient Coastal Communities Program.

The program is rolling out in four phases: community engagement and risk and vulnerability assessment; planning, project selection and prioritization; project engineering and design; and implementation. The initial funds are to be used for the first two phases.

Community applications were scored across seven criteria, including the level of risk exposure to vulnerable populations and critical assets, economic status and need, and internal capacity and momentum with related efforts, according to the state.

The towns of Aurora, Beaufort, Belhaven, Cape Carteret, Hertford, Leland, Navassa, Sunset Beach, Surf City, Topsail Beach, North Topsail Beach, Vandemere, Washington and Windsor are to receive technical assistance to complete Phases 1 and 2.

Barnes Sutton, town planner in Navassa in Brunswick County, explained Tuesday that urban planning and design were once guided by the natural forces in a given area, such as navigable waters or the direction of prevailing winds, allowing cities to optimize those natural resources and by extension protect those resources.

"This created unique places that balanced city centers and residential areas with communal space and fields for agriculture," Sutton said. He added that at some point, urban planning moved away from these principles and began to emphasize consumption over conservation.

"Being selected to participate in the Resilient Coastal Communities Program underlines the importance of natural resources and how to grow with sustainability and recyclability in the forefront, which in time, can undo the damages over-consumption has done," Sutton said. "Navassa is poised to support exponential growth in residential, commercial and recreational sectors over the next five years, all of which will need healthy and efficient waterways to support it and will only be magnified by the restoration and protection of them."

Beaufort in Carteret County also received a grant. Town Planner Kate Allen told Coastal Review Tuesday that storm surge and the heavy rainstorms and higher tides of recent years pose acute risks to life and property, particularly during hurricane season.

"In 2018, Hurricane Florence wreaked havoc on the town and surrounding areas. Heavy rains coupled with high tide results in frequent flooding of Front Street. Shoreline erosion, primarily caused by rising water levels and storms, increases the town's flooding risk. These stressors individually pose risk, but are most impactful when they occur together, and often they do," she said. "As a small community, town staff lack the time necessary to conduct thorough vulnerability and risk assessments. This grant will allow the town to place more emphasis on the risk and vulnerability assessment included in the ongoing CAMA/Comprehensive Land Use Plan update."

The division also selected the counties of Beaufort, Craven, Currituck, Dare for Hatteras Island, Hertford, Hyde and Pamlico for the program.

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said Tuesday that the county received a $30,000 grant through the program to study all risks and vulnerabilities on Hatteras Island. These include economic vulnerabilities, storm vulnerabilities, transportation vulnerabilities and any others that the consultant determines exist.

"Completion of this study would make Dare County eligible for additional grants to determine remedies to resolve or mitigate the vulnerabilities found," Outten said. "Once the remedies are determined, Dare County would be eligible for yet another grant to begin implementing those remedies."

Duck, Nags Head, Swansboro and Pine Knoll Shores have shown significant momentum in resilience planning and have been selected to complete the remaining requirements of the first two phases, the division said in the March 17 announcement.

Burdick said big barriers for communities when it comes to planning is the lack of a dedicated resilience budget, an overall reduced budget related to the economic effects of the pandemic, and a lack of capacity to plan.

A more proactive, sustainable and equitable approach to risk planning focuses on mitigating or reducing vulnerability, rather than responding after storms or flooding, she said.

The resilience program is a priority in the state's Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan and reflects Gov. Roy Cooper's commitment to building climate change resiliency statewide while promoting economic growth and stability. It's the product of a series of resilience efforts and events the division led in recent years to address intensifying natural hazards on the coast, Burdick said.

The division worked with five local governments from 2017 to 2018 using a process called Resilience Evaluation Needs Assessment, or RENA, to map critical assets and assess risk and vulnerability to coastal hazards.

After Hurricane Florence in 2018, Cooper signed Executive Order No. 80, calling for the development of the North Carolina Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan. The state held several workshops in 2019, including in Elizabeth City and Wilmington, to ensure the plan was based on local knowledge and needs, she said.

The 2020 Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan called for the development of the Resilient Communities Program, which was designed to boost resilience building at the local level with a three-pronged approach: local government funding, training and capacity building and an online resilience portal. The Resilient Coastal Communities Program falls under the larger umbrella of the statewide North Carolina Resilient Communities Program, Burdick explained.

The division received about $830,000 in funding from the North Carolina General Assembly and $1.1 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation this year to begin developing and implementing the resilience framework for local governments.

Partnering with the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, North Carolina Sea Grant and The Nature Conservancy, the division tailored a number of resilience plans from other states to needs specific to coastal North Carolina communities.

Division Director Braxton Davis said division partners and coastal communities have been working on various aspects of coastal resilience for a long time, but lacked a clear framework to help organize efforts.

"This new program will help all of us become more efficient and strategic in our investments, ensure that we are identifying and prioritizing the most important projects, and provide more targeted technical assistance that builds on previous planning efforts," Davis said. "DCM is proud to lead this effort on behalf of our coastal communities and appreciates the ongoing partnerships we have with the N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency, The Nature Conservancy, and N.C. Sea Grant."

The resilience team held two interactive webinars in August 2020 to introduce the Resilient Coastal Communities Program and the funding opportunities targeted to local governments, consultants, academia and nongovernmental organizations. A total of 225 attendees participated in these webinars, including representation from 18 county governments and 39 municipal governments.

A virtual discussion with more than 50 contractors interested in providing services to communities through this program was held in September 2020. There were 24 contractor applications for Phases 1 and 2.

"Understanding the importance of inclusivity and equity in planning processes, participating local governments and contractors will develop a Community Action Team, or steering committee, and a community engagement strategy to involve community members and local leaders throughout the process," Burdick said. "Local knowledge and feedback are key and will help inform the process and drive the development of sound, feasible projects and action items to enhance resilience."


Jennifer Allen wrote this article for Coastal Review Online, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.


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School buses are getting cleaner in Washington state after this year's legislative session.

Lawmakers in Olympia passed House Bill 1368, which will fund the purchase of zero emission school buses.

Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island, said the program is getting off the ground quickly.

"As we work towards that long-term goal of all new school buses being zero emission, we're kick-starting this year with $40 million in grants to school districts in overburdened communities," Senn explained.

Going forward, Senn noted school districts will have to purchase zero-emission vehicles once the total cost of ownership is equal to or lower than the cost of diesel vehicles. The state is leveraging the state's Climate Commitment Act resources to fund the transition of its 10,000 school buses.

Devin Denney, director of transportation for Highline Public Schools in King County, which already has electric school buses in its fleet, said he has driven the electric buses and talked about some of their benefits from a driver's perspective.

"You're not competing against that engine noise, the kids aren't competing against the engine noise," Denney observed. "It's a much quieter bus all the way around. The major advantage, of course, is that there's no tailpipe emissions with an electric bus, so our kids' health is better protected."

Senn emphasized health studies have shown there are negative health effects from diesel vehicles for kids, and it is easy to understand why.

"If you think about kids waiting to get on their bus in front of an elementary school and you have this line of buses idling, letting out diesel fumes right at the height of a little child, it becomes obvious that this is probably not the most healthy thing for our children," Senn added.


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Today, in honor of Earth Day, climate advocates are asking California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom to rally around a plan to put a $15 billion bond measure on the November ballot.

If passed, the bond measure would fund a range of climate resiliency measures.

Sam Hodder, president and CEO of the Save the Redwoods League, said March was the tenth month in a row to break monthly heat records.

"I think Earth Day is a terrific opportunity for the broader public to recognize how nature is critical for resilience, for our quality of life, for our mental and physical health, and for our communities more broadly," Hodder outlined.

Two similar bills to put a bond measure on the ballot are under consideration in Sacramento, Assembly Bill 1567 and Senate Bill 867, but they have been stalled since last summer. The bond would finance many programs, including some to restore wetlands that guard against sea-level rise, and to remove dead wood in forests to guard against mega-fires, which Hodder noted have killed 20% of the giant sequoias in recent years.

Opponents pointed out the state already faces a budget deficit and cannot afford to take on more debt. But only 5% of California's old-growth coastal redwoods remain, mostly due to aggressive logging many decades ago.

Hodder argued the giant trees can be critical ingredients in the fight against climate change because they trap so much carbon.

"Redwood forests sequester more carbon per acre than any other forest system in the world," Hodder emphasized. "We have the opportunity to transition the redwood forest from something that is vulnerable to climate change to something that is helping to solve and address the climate crisis."

Experts blame climate change for California's wild weather over the past few years, which has been marked by extreme drought, devastating fires and flooding rain.

A new report from the National Wildlife Federation warns that the effects of climate change in the Quad Cities, along the Iowa-Illinois border, will be severe.

But researchers got the public involved in studying to find ways to head off some of the most pressing concerns.

The report says climate change means a warmer, wetter future for the Quad Cities, which straddle the Mississippi River in Iowa and Illinois.

But rather than repeat what experts have already been saying about drastic flooding along the Big Muddy, Prairie Rivers Network River Health and Resiliency Organizer Nina Struss said researchers and Quad Cities residents brainstormed solutions to tackle the effects of climate change.

"Flooding and flash flooding were the top concerns," said Struss. "Extreme heat was also a big concern, as well as drought and other extreme weather events."

Researchers combined that information with hard science at the University of Illinois to create 3D models depicting what climate-induced flooding along the Mississippi could look like in the future.

The survey also asked people to identify which geographical areas and populations are most at risk from the effects of climate change, and worked with the community on solutions to mitigate some of them.

Struss said this research proposes what are known as nature-based solutions to combat the effects of climate change - restoring, preserving and even expanding existing ecosystems, like wetlands and tree canopies. But creating more eco-friendly infrastructure, too.

"Can we work to maybe have our pavements that we're putting in be more permeable, so that they can absorb that water and have that higher water-holding capacity?" said Struss. "Can we focus on areas to plant more native plants that have stronger root systems, versus ones that have shorter root systems, to help with that water-holding capacity?"

Struss said this research isn't a one-off. It will continue to change, she said, as the climate changes, the needs become more clear, and the effects more drastic.

She said progress in addressing climate change relies on more research, education and funding.




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