STONINGTON, Maine — Stonington Town Manager Kathleen Billings has the Federal Emergency Management Agency's 2016 100-year flood map tacked on the wall above her desk. Eight years later, she is leading her town in efforts to fortify the community’s infrastructure against the warming and rising tides.
In early August, the town presented the first three projects of its climate resiliency plan. The first is to raise a 400-foot stretch of Oceanville Road by 4 feet.
Dale Haley’s home and business are just beyond where the construction will occur. Haley has been there since 1987 but said he hasn't seen storms quite like the ones that hit coastal communities in January.
“Well, it was unreal, really,” he said. “We've had surges before, but nothing like that.”
The second project is to take place at Fifield Point Road, where Travis Fifield’s family has lived for more than 200 years.
At age 40, Fifield said he has noticed the ways the water he and his family rely on have changed.
“You know the cove, when I was a kid, still froze over," he said. "That hasn't happened in a while now."
He has already lifted his business’s wharf, but the powerful back-to-back coastal storms in January showed that wasn’t enough. Yet, staying on the water is the only way his business survives—something not all understand.
“You know, it’s really easy to say, 'Just move, just retreat, build it somewhere else.' But for our business, there is no building somewhere else,” he said.
The final project is at Odd Fellows Hall on Main Street. The town recently acquired the property and plans to use the new real estate to protect the shore and create better business opportunities.
Linda Nelson, the town’s economic and community development director, said they are “achieving a lot of different goals all at the same time.”
“We are providing more float space for dinghies, which we desperately need. We are providing a stronger, more resilient shoreline, which Main Street needs. And we are providing the public access to this beautiful shore front,” she said.
Yet, Nelson is not confident the efforts to build higher will solve the problem.
“We are all recognizing that the climate is moving faster than people expected,” she said. “But no, I don't think it’s enough.”
In addition to fortification, she emphasizes the need to reduce waste and pollution to stand a chance to climate change.
Oceanville Road is the only project far enough along to have an estimated cost at $1.8 million. However, these three projects are just the beginning. About a dozen locations have already been identified by the town for fortification.