EDITORIAL: Sea-level rise too risky for us to ignore

Sept. 17--Water began bubbling up from storm drains at high tide in Miami Beach long before Hurricane Irma took aim at Florida. Sea level rise is not an abstract topic there. The city of Miami Beach is launching a $100 million project to raise roads, install pumps and revamp sewer systems.

But now is not the time to talk about rising sea levels or climate change. That's what Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt told CNN as Hurricane Irma bore down on the Florida Keys.

"To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm, versus helping people or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced," he said.

He feels so strongly about that stance that he put John Konkus, a Trump campaign worker with little environmental experience, in charge of scrutinizing EPA grant applications for the dreaded "double-C word" -- climate change. EPA officials now must eliminate all references to the banned topic in grant applications.

Here in North Carolina, a 2012 study by a scientific advisory council to the Coastal Resources Commission urged coastal communities to plan for a 39-inch rise in sea levels by 2100.

The General Assembly's response? It passed a law mandating that sea-level estimates be based on historical trends rather than the scientific analysis, which shows accelerated increases.

That drew sarcastic praise from comedian Stephen Colbert: "If your science gives you a result that you don't like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved."

With the new law in place, a 2014 report to the Coastal Resources Commission came back with a much more comforting analysis, looking just 30 years ahead, predicting sea level increases from as low as 4 inches in Southport to up to a foot on the northern Outer Banks.

If you're building a new bridge at Oregon Inlet on the Outer Banks or at Surf City, you might hope the bridge would last more than 30 years. Doesn't it make sense to use the best scientific data available for the planning?

The Union of Concerned Scientists has analyzed sea-level rise based on three scenarios -- low, moderate and high. Under the moderate scenario, parts of New Hanover County would be subject to chronic flooding by 2100, with high tides affecting a tenth of our non-wetland areas about every other week. The predictions are more dire to our north.

But as the Raleigh News & Observer reported last week, real estate development in places like the Outer Banks is particularly lucrative, and the industry has successfully blocked coastal planning policies based on what the best research says.

Predictions aren't exact, but the overwhelming consensus among scientists is that our activities are warming seas and melting ice caps. That produces fiercer and wetter storms (think Irma, Harvey, Matthew, Sandy, Floyd) and gradually encroaching seawater. Check out the dead trees along Smith Creek Parkway or River Road to see what saltwater intrusion looks like.

And it's about much more than flooded streets -- underground infrastructure such as water and sewer pipes will be compromised. It's already happening in Miami.

So do we update flood maps and discourage building in areas that the best science tells us will experience increased flooding? Change building codes?

Or do we continue to make scientific results we don't like illegal, and purge grant applications of unpleasant words like climate change?

We don't have to be alarmist about sea-level rise, but we should take it seriously. And that means listening more to the scientists who have studied our coast for years, and less to the development interests that have a huge financial stake in pretending the problem doesn't exist.

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