When the Storms Come, Will We Be Prepared?
Task Force on Climate Emergency Meets, Leo Protests Continue, Charles Sidman Increases GoFundMe ask
BAR HARBOR—Storms. Intense storms. Life-threatening storms. Flooding. Infrastructure failure. The one way onto the island no longer there.
According to an Alan Yuhas article in the New York Times,
“The planet has warmed about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century and will continue to grow hotter until humans essentially stop burning coal, oil and gas, scientists say. The warmer temperatures contribute to extreme weather events and help make periods of extreme heat more frequent, longer and more intense.”
It sounds a bit like a Stephen King scenario, especially when thinking about Mount Desert Island perched on the edge of the mainland, jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, but it’s all possibilities because of climate change according to a scientist who spoke to the Bar Harbor’s Task Force on the Climate Emergency Monday afternoon.
Town Councilor Gary Friedmann said that in terms of sea level rise on Mount Desert Island, Tremont is by far the most threatened, but, he said, “In Bar Harbor we have a couple of things that are really weighing on us. One of those things is the intensity of storms.”
Bar Harbor passed an over $53 million infrastructure bond to deal with combined sewer overflow. Massive storms can cause outflow from the system into the ocean, which can’t impact the life in the ocean as well as the people who interact with that life or the ocean itself. The storms can also cause erosion in the carriage roads.
And when those storms might come?
“It’s like an unknown. We’ve been fortunate in Maine because we haven’t had a really big hurricane strike here,” recently, Friedmann said and referenced Hurricane Gloria in 1985. “We’re due.”
September 8–11, 1969 – Hurricane Gerda landed in Eastport, Maine.
September 27, 1985 – Hurricane Gloria – took out forests in Maine and caused flooding.
September 17–18, 1999 –Tropical Storm Floyd brought substantial rainfall.
August 23, 2009 – Hurricane Bill brought flash flooding and killed two in Acadia National Park
In 2005 a subtropical depression joined with the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy and caused flooding throughout the Northeast, including Bar Harbor.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency report, “Since 2011, Boston, Massachusetts, has exceeded the flood threshold most often—an average of 13 days per year—followed by Bar Harbor, Maine.”
According to the report,
“Changing sea levels are affecting human activities in coastal areas. Rising sea level inundates low-lying wetlands and dry land, erodes shorelines, contributes to coastal flooding, and increases the flow of salt water into estuaries and nearby groundwater aquifers. Higher sea level also makes coastal infrastructure more vulnerable to damage from storms.”
When it comes to rising sea levels, Bar Harbor’s cliffs and elevated shoreline puts it in a better situation than some other MDI towns according to Hannah Baranes, a postdoctoral fellow at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI), but that doesn’t mean that climate change isn’t impacting the town, she said.
“Big rain events create flooding in the interior of the island,” Maine Coast Heritage Trust’s Misha Mytar agreed. Mytar is also on the School Board, Comprehensive Planning Committee and the board of A Climate To Thrive. “It doesn’t look like sea level rise, but it’s climate change.”
So far, the town, according to Poland (also on the board of A Climate to Thrive), has looked at flood maps and roads and she doesn’t believed it has yet delved into the social vulnerability of some residents.
Baranes said that salt water intrusion into septic systems and wells, dealing with increasingly warmer temperature, and invasive features can be a problem, but “your primary flood related vulnerability is the bridge onto MDI.”
MDOT is looking into that currently, she said, and that it is a state-level issue. The bridge is the only vehicular way on and off the island.
When it comes to risk, Stephanie Sun, climate engagement specialist at the GMRI said, “Every town is different.”
Mobile home park residents might be more vulnerable during heat events. However, the way a community within that park looks after each other might be more of a strength. So, for some, climate work encourages deep engagement within communities so that they can truly understand the community’s risk.
The Task Force on the Climate Emergency quickly welcomed new members during its July 24 meeting and heard a bit of a proposal from the GMRI. It decided to wait on the GMRI proposal until after this fall’s resiliency training run by A Climate To Thrive.
Poland mentioned that work is already happening via the Landscape of Change project and King Tides Project which depicts water level rise impacts around the island via the use of stencils created by Jennifer Booher, who is the wife of task force member Brian Booher. Poland said of the project, “It’s just on the periphery of community awareness.”
The community resilience training with the Climate to Thrive does not yet have a set date other than in the fall. There was discussion about who should attend.
HOW IT ALL FOLDS INTO THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
The town is currently undergoing a comprehensive plan update. The plan is meant to be a vision for development for the town for the next decade. It delves into land use and conservation and planning for the town’s resources (natural and infrastructure). At the same time, the task force is updating its own action plan, which outlines goals and strategies from 2021 to 2026.
“It’s tricky to do multiple things at the same time,” Poland said of the task force and comprehensive plan.
Booher mentioned that Hull’s Cove has issues with flooding and water and this knowledge should be informing the Comprehensive Plan as committee members look to where the town should develop. Planning for successful development also means planning for a changing environment.
According to Mytar, the consultants for the plan were looking at the same kind of layers about sea rise restrictions and looking at parts of Hull’s Cove beyond the most threatened as places to develop. One of the next phases in the comprehensive planning process is to have a series of meeting (staff and consultants) with various committees in the town. Those are currently being scheduled.
TASK FORCE’S MISSION AND FOCUS AND STRUCTURE
There was some discussion about the group’s mission and focus. As the new Town Council liaison Friedmann said, “My recollection of the CTF mission is that its focus was mitigation.”
Poland said most of the time they discuss resiliency.
“I think that I’d like to see the town outside the Climate Change Task Force take the stuff on because I think it’s more than this group can handle,” Friedmann said. He’d like to see the mitigation efforts “build a sense of hope and engagement when dealing with climate change.”
The task force’s mission leans heavily on the cause of climate change, which would be greenhouse gas emissions. The symptoms are things like rising sea levels and flash flood events.
New member Mary Ann Handel said, “The town is going to have to address the symptoms. We’re going to wash away if we don’t.”
She spoke to the liminal spaces where the land of Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor meet. “We just have to look back to this spring to Great Meadow. There has to be shared responsibility.”
Poland said the park has just hired a new position to deal with hydrological issues with climate change in mind.
There was some discussion about whether or not the task force should transition into a committee, possibly combining with the Conservation Commission, which has had some difficulties with achieving a quorum for the past year.
Conservation Commission Secretary Ted Koffman said, “We need more members on our commission. We can’t get a quorum.” He said that his committee’s members will be paying attention to task force meetings to get the groups more coordinated.
Poland said, “Perhaps we should vision converting into a committee and clarifying our goals as a permanent group. We have a lot of committee and task forces for a very small town. Sometimes that volunteer power is lacking.”
The task force almost always makes quorum requirements and has made multiple progresses on the goals outlined in its bylaws as well as those outlined in the action plan from November 21. The action plan itself lists a time line for steps with many ending in FY 2024.
Those goals include public engagement, building electrification and energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, and achieving 100% renewable electricity sources for all municipal operations by 2030. The plan is meant to be a “living document,” which just means that it gets updated easily with new strategies toward the goal of net-zero emissions.
Net-zero emissions means when the amount of greenhouse gasses created is the same as the amount of greenhouse gasses taken away.
Greenhouse gasses are things like carbon-dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. These warm the planet and occur when fossil fuels like coal and oil and gas are burned.
WORK BEING DONE
According to the Schoodic Institute, “higher sea levels mean that storm waves and flooding are also higher. The worst case scenario of a storm arriving at the same time as a king tide occurred December 2022. A three-foot surge in water levels provided a glimpse of average sea level rises in the future.”
A big part of the mission of the Landscape of Change project, which is, according to the Mount Desert Island Historical Society a “collaborative project using history, science, and imagination to document and communicate the scope, speed, and scale of climate change on MDI,” is to get people thinking and talking about the sea levels and changes.
Since 1950, the sea level in Bar Harbor has increased (or risen) 8 inches. It’s expected to rise an addition foot by 2050; it’s predicted to rise three feet by 2100. The impact is obvious when you start to look.
EV CHARGER PROPOSAL
The Task Force discussed potentially having EV chargers (meant primarily to help renters intown to have a convenient place to charge) at metered parking spots. The discussion centered around having the meters’ charge more so that the electric chargers could be used and having that charge decrease over the night-time hours and be available year round. The committee will discuss this with interim Town Manager and Finance Director Sarah Gilbert.
OFFICERS AND NEW MEMBERS
The group unanimously re-elected Chair Poland, Vice Chair Tobin Peacock, and Secretary Jennifer Crandall. Handel and Ezra Sassaman are new members of the task force. Crandall was reappointed.
LEONARD LEO PROTESTS CONTINUE
Though it’s in Northeast Harbor, much like the police force, the protests against Leonard Leo, conservative activist, involve Bar Harbor residents from Eli McDonnell-Durand who has a lawsuit against a Bar Harbor police officer and a Mount Desert police lieutenant, to Annlinn Kruger whose chalk protests on the Bar Harbor sidewalks and streets continue in both towns. For almost a year, Kruger has expressed her desire for accountability from the Bar Harbor Town Council and former Bar Harbor town manager Kevin Sutherland for actions that occurred in 2022 when she was chalking in Bar Harbor proper.
The protest Sunday in Northeast Harbor came immediately after Durand’s suit hit the media. There was a crowd of between 50-65 people at Sunday’s protest. McDonnell-Durand did not appear to be there, but Kruger was. Someone had hosed the street immediately before the protest and they were hosing it down as protesters were leaving.
Leo’s March purchase of Saint Ignatius Catholic Church, a church in Northeast Harbor, has also spawned newspaper articles this week.
CHARLES SIDMAN ASKS FOR FUNDS TO SUPPORT HIS EFFORTS IN CRUISE SHIP LAWSUITS
Last week, Charles Sidman, the defender intervenor (on the side of Bar Harbor) in the lawsuit by the Association to Protect Personal Livelihoods (APPL) and the Maine Pilots Association against the new cruise ship limits updated his GoFundMe and detailed the costs of the lawsuit. Those costs do not include the money the town has spent on its own lawyers.
At the last Town Council meeting, interim Town Manager and Finance Director Sarah Gilbert said that the budget line for legal fees was more than 446% what was budgeted. That number, $275,773, only includes invoices through May. The lawsuit was not the only reason for the town’s legal fees, but made up a big part of it.
In Sidman’s report he writes,
”Much to report in this update, mostly of a positive and encouraging nature. First of all, though, my continuing boundless gratitude and respect for all of our supporters! As of today, 240 donations totalling $85,950 have been received (either through the portal or via direct personal check) and are all reflected in GoFundMe. Our effort is truly a grass roots community campaign, and everyone involved should take enormous credit and personal satisfaction in jointly working for the world we want to experience and pass on to our children.
”The big news currently is that the courtroom phase of the trial is over, as of last week. Federal District Court Judge Lance Walker presided strictly but with fairness as well as humor, and everyone on the defendant side of the issue has high hopes for a positive (for us) decision. Some highlights from the trial are as follows. First, the plaintiffs monopolized 2 courtroom days out of 3, focussing almost entirely on the distractions and legal irrelevancies of business motivations and personal financial stakes, while largely neglecting the community and the fundamental legal issues on which they supposedly brought suit. On the other hand, the defendants (we and the Town) made what we feel are compelling legal cases that the Initiative at issue represents the essential core activity of a political entity recognizing and addressing, in a logical and rational manner, a significant and even existential problem facing its community and citizens. The sea change in voter sentiment over the decades was clearly described, with a former town council chair recounting decades-earlier desires for local economic development as well as (self-benefiting) business activity, while the current chair forthrightly expressed the obvious, that current community sentiment has come to regard the cruise industry and its acolytes as having overrun their place and welcome in our town. Judge Walker's decision will still take many months of further briefings and responses before it is issued (by year's end hopefully), but we have every reason to be optimistic. It is inconceivable to me that big business will be recognized as having an unchallengable right to run the world for its own benefit and in a completely undemocratic fashion. Everyone please stay tuned in and involved!
”On the financial front, the picture is less rosy and requires digging even deeper into all of our pockets. Our legal bills so far have totalled $178,547 ($6,028, $19,886, $11,401, $28,726, $18,347, $44,313 and $49,846 for January through July, respectively), with more to come from the trial itself and submission of further briefs in the coming months. During this period, our campaign has so far taken in $85,950, from which GoFundMe has deducted $1,749 in fees, leaving $84,201 to be paid towards our legal bills to date. We are thus currently behind in our bills by $94,346, with additional and substantial amounts certain to appear shortly. For this reason I have today increased our total funding target to $250,000, of which any extra collected over what we will owe to be put toward compatible community use. I am also making personal appeals throughout the local and extended communities as energetically as I am able. Every supporter's help is strongly requested, both for connections as well as actual donations.
”In closing, this fight is turning out to be much more expensive than anticipated (which I'm sure was not accidental to the plaintiffs), but is more than worthwhile for the very soul of our community. Do not be discouraged, for one way or another, "we shall overcome"! Thank you to all!”
As of this story, the GoFundMe has increased to about $93,000.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
https://barharbormaine.gov/468/Task-Force-on-the-Climate-Emergency
https://schoodicinstitute.org/science/citizen-science/landscape-of-change/
https://www.barharbormaine.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4956/Open-Space-Plan-2020-01-25-21-Final
https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/knowing-its-coming
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8413320
Schoodic Institute's Imaging the Future Shore with MDI High School
Cool story maps about the area
NYT article about rising sea levels
The NOAA map to visualize sea level rise.