Safe families, secure investments under climate change

The following letter was sent to Sussex Planning and Zoning Commission, Sussex County Council and Todd F. Lawson, administrator, with a copy submitted to the Cape Gazette for publication.

Last week the Cape Gazette reported former Dewey Mayor Diane Hanson as saying, "If we don't do something now, in 50 years Dewey Beach will be under water."

This week, the City of Lewes, like the State of Delaware a week earlier, joined nearly 400 other U.S. cities in the United States Climate Alliance. Lewes and Delaware demonstrated responsible leadership.

Like thousands of well-managed counties and cities around the world, the cities of Lewes, Dewey, Fenwick Island, South Bethany, Milton and others are already preparing for periodic flooding with increasing frequency.

All of Sussex is considered coastal risk. Inland flooding will become more severe with the extreme precipitation predicted- until we have a global plan to stop the burning of dirty fuels that is overloading the atmosphere with carbon pollution, and a local plan for resilience, primarily by a transition toward compact, walkable developments with verdant green streets, surrounded by preserved forests, and wetlands (to attenuate storm surge and soak up flooding).

Planning for much of this is necessarily a local task, the responsibility not of Washington or Dover, but the Sussex Comprehensive Plan. Wise local preparation now opens more - and more desirable - pathways against increasing risk, loss of life, and far greater cost down the line. It is a form of prudent insurance against uncertainty. Delay dramatically increases risk and limits our future options.

But in the 2008 Comp Plan, and now the preliminaries of the 2018 Comp Plan, there is no mention of climate preparedness. This is troubling.

Sussex County has a responsibility, under law, to protect the public health and safety of families, and our investments in homes, businesses and farms, with a comp plan based on the climate of the present and future - not one of the past. Only that offers continued investor confidence and peace of mind.

The Sussex planners should follow the science and professional practices of other coastal counties that make them cooler, safer, more desirable and prosperous for the longterm.

There are many good options to explore. For instance:

• Transitioning new residential construction toward being carbon-neutral, as some Sussex residences already are by using extra insulation and solar power (to be efficient and save money). Plan new developments as walkable, compact, mixed-use settlements - like Sussex's historic towns - reducing emissions, hot pavement and the need to drive all the time. As a co-benefit, this dramatically improves human health from activeliving and reduced air pollution, whose savings on healthcare costs often more than pay for the more desirable urban design.

• Protect environmentally sensitive lands as no build zones, and look to create resiliency in the increasingly risky water-edge areas. Consider adding "no-build public safety zones" along the shore with the long-term (compensated) retreat from rising seas and storm surge as a future goal. Focus, for financial and public safety concerns, on preserving, and where possible, restoring wetlands and forests proximate to the immediate coast to better protect front-line neighborhoods against dangerous storm surge. This stabilizes home values.

• Encourage carbon sequestration through the planting of green infrastructure and reforestation along roads (including Route 1), urban forestry and backyard rain gardens to rehydrate soils, remove toxic pollutants, and help cool Sussex naturally as the Sussex Conservation District recommends. This will convert dirty problem-carbon (in the air) into a value-adding solution-carbon (in trees and healthy soils). And, as insurers now recommend, it may lower insurance costs.

• Explore incentives for Sussex farms and forests to not only be preserved as operating, profitable concerns but also be transitioned into carbon banks that absorb and utilize carbon in the most efficient manner (and flood waters as well, perhaps with compensation). The comp plan should also consider methods to protect farmers from periods of extended drought, severe storms and saltwater infiltration.

The Sussex Comp Plan should, as plans of other counties do, address our changed climate as the broad lens through which every aspect of the comp plan should now be considered.

Facing uncertainty, these, and many other typical comp plan measures, proven in other counties, can only help keep Sussex farms, businesses, homes and families safe, and investments secure.

We, the undersigned citizens of Sussex County, seek to have the Sussex Planning and Zoning Commission and Sussex County Council recognize, as other governments have, the gravity of our situation. We hereby petition them to develop pragmatic plans to deal with climate change impacts in our new Sussex Comprehensive Plan.

John Mateyko
Nadine Wick
Leslie Ledogar
Rachael Greer Reynolds, L.C.S.W.
Rick Greer Reynolds
Janet Strickler
Lewes

Diane Hanson
Bill Hanson
Eleanor Tyler
Maggie Bauer
Faith Duncan
Dewey Beach

Mable Granke
Susan M. Gay
Johanna Barbate
Jayne Tamburells
Rehoboth Beach

Inland Bays Foundation Board