Following the Town Council’s extensive discussions at its meeting on March 4 about erosion control, flooding, sea level rise, and the council’s desire to hold two work sessions to address these issues, the Sea Level Rise Committee (SLRC) held its monthly meeting on March 5 and applauded the Town Council’s attention to these matters. One of the proposed work sessions was to review town ordinances relating to private erosion-control projects while the other was to take a “deep dive” into the issues related to Fred Benson Town Beach.
Clair Comings, Co-Chair of the SLRC, opened the meeting by declaring that “it was great that the Town Council took these [issues] up because obviously they have been key topics of conversation for us in these meetings, and I thought it was [good] to hear from [the council] that these were priorities for them as well.”
The SLRC members agreed with the council’s position that step one in approaching these issues would be to hold a conversation with the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) to ensure clarity about jurisdictional issues. The discussion about the steps following that first step was much more diverse.
One of the key issues that Comings raised was related to expertise: “There needs to be technical advice at that meeting for it to be productive... We’ve all spent two years batting around the ideas that we have and I think they’re all great ideas [and] I think we need someone that knows what they’re talking about to really tell us what needs to be done.” Comings and others referred to the recent grants from the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. She reiterated that “the whole reason we wrote [the grant] was so there would be this technical advice to guide these conversations, so I just feel so strongly that [it is important to have] someone in the room who is going to provide us with more expertise.”
Town Planner Alison Ring told the committee that the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank “did approve our revised budget.” The evening before, when asked by First Warden Keith Stover, Ring described this as an ongoing negotiation.
Ring told the committee that the “money is going to be used for planning and design along ... Corn Neck Road but the focus is ... Scotch Beach... Town Beach parking area.... restoration of dunes where there [are] ... gaps or access... It is mostly planning and design [but] we did move some money into implementation... $200,000 towards actual construction, drainage, movement of sand, dune, planting. So it will be at multiple locations along that Scotch Beach to Beachhead [corridor] but mostly Town Beach and Scotch Beach.”
She continued that “we’re just about to execute the grant agreement with Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank and ... then we can write the RFP (Request for Proposals) and advertise the RFP to hire professionals to assist us. And it would be... at least a year-long process that would include multiple opportunities for public engagement as they develop, design, [and] permit those solutions.” The SLRC stressed the importance of it and the Council reviewing the RFP as well as the grant application.
Anne Salinas, SLRC member, asked about the construction, to which Ring replied that “part of that [original] scope [in the grant application] was to address drainage in the town beach parking lot [such as the] infiltration system, [which] had been designed by the Town Engineer... Because [the original request was for approximately one] million dollars [and] we only received part of that award, [only] for planning and design, and because we knew that the community was ready to ...move forward towards implementation ... the Infrastructure Bank gave us the flexibility to move around the funding [into] implementation and to start that [project].”
As at the Town Council meeting, Ring explained that the RFP would likely be fulfilled by one firm. At the SLRC meeting, Ring added that the firm would likely have subcontractors. She mentioned the engineering firm Fuss & O’Neil which assisted with the grant’s development.
Nigel Grindley raised the point that “the flooding of the [Town Beach] parking lot ... and this dune protection of Corn Neck Road... are only somewhat related... The flooding is actually far more often from rain than it is from anything to do with tidal action. The number of times that we’ve had tides that have been high enough to flood that lot is pretty small... But clearly, if we’re going to solve the dune problem, then the whole issue of water coming from the ocean through the town beach [lot] that’s [only] going to solve a fraction of the flooding issue. But there’s going to be a lot of flooding issues in that lot until it’s reengineered or redesigned... It’s really not a part of sea level rise issue at all...”
Comings reminded everyone that “protecting the road and ensuring that there’s a connection between the southern and northern part of the island - going back to the grant - [was] the whole rationale for doing the planning:...to preserve the connection between north and south.”
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant application reads in part that “the Town seeks funding to examine options that would enhance the function of the natural ecosystems surrounding a section of Corn Neck Road,” while the Municipal Resilience Program application reads in part that, “One area that stood out as excessively vulnerable, critical to daily life, and therefore a top priority in need of immediate attention is a 1.16-mile stretch of Corn Neck Road.”
The SLRC revisited a recommendation asking the town to hire a climate or coastal resiliency officer. Salinas said that the committee needed to “make the case for a climate resilience coordinator,” later adding that the “coastal resiliency officer idea, which we support, [would provide] support for Alison [Ring] and town’s implementing, even overseeing this grant and future grants.”
Ring concluded that they would be “putting out an RFP, a firm will be hired, [the firm will] hold public engagement sessions about the issues... identifying strategies and then that’s where [the] public and Sea Level Rise Committee can give input throughout that process on those strategies, because there will be... additional opportunities for next rounds of funding to implement additional components.”
