Nate Monroe: Flood study should include areas that actually … uh, flood

March 28--COMMENTARY | One might assume that a task force charged with studying sea-level rise in Jacksonville would focus intensely on areas that were under water during Hurricane Irma, a storm responsible for the city's worst flood in about a century.

One would be wrong, of course.

As it stands now, City Hall's unfortunately named "Adaptation Action Area Working Group" is primarily limited to focusing mostly on coastal Jacksonville -- that is, the Beaches on down to the St. Johns County line -- while downtown, Riverside, Ortega, San Marco and some of the Northside neighborhoods along the St. Johns River feeder creeks are left out. Those areas, an astute reader may recall, suffered historic flooding during Hurricane Irma's passage through Florida, which by the time it sideswiped the city was a weak Category 1 transitioning into a tropical storm.

That oversight stems from the simple fact that the working group is using a coastal-hazards map that was created using incomplete assumptions -- assumptions that don't capture the scope of inland flooding possible for parts of the city along the St. Johns River. So Jacksonville's best chance at a real study of sea-level rise and storm surge hazards along its massive coastal and inland shorelines is on track at the moment to be fatally flawed.

Fortunately, this group -- I won't repeat its full, jargony name again -- has a chance to make it right, and its members seem open to correcting this problem.

In a presentation Monday, Erik Olsen, a working group member and a long-time coastal engineer in Jacksonville, pointed out that focusing on the city's coast and mostly ignoring well-known inland flooding hot spots would be "grossly inaccurate and highly misleading." Residents who rescue crews had to pluck from their flooding homes in Riverside and San Marco during Irma would probably be inclined to agree.

The working group has been charged with evaluating the impact of 2 feet of sea-level rise by 2060. It won't do any good to limit that to the coast. The St. Johns is influenced by tides throughout much of its lower basin, which includes Jacksonville's city limits. This portion of the river has always been connected to the Atlantic Ocean, but man-made changes since the late 19th century have strengthened that connection and turned the river into something much different -- and more dangerous in storms.

Olsen points out that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project to deepen the St. Johns River shipping channel from 40 to 47 feet will result in a little more than 2 inches of increased water levels around downtown -- the equivalent of about 25 years of sea-level rise in one fell swoop. Neither the Army Corps nor the Jacksonville Port Authority seem inclined to do anything about this except to stubbornly plunge forward on the dredging project either blind or indifferent to the changes it will bring.

So it'll fall to this working group -- which the city was required to set up by state law -- to evaluate the risks and determine what should be done about them.

Here's the big-picture problem: The St. Johns River is the city's drainage basin, i.e. where stormwater runoff goes. But the river is also rising -- in Mayport it has been measured to increase by about an inch per decade -- so instances when water levels in the river are higher than the drainage system will become more and more common. Parts of the city already deal with this problem. The San Marco neighborhood's troubles with nuisance flooding, or flooding during high tides, has become particularly well-known to motorists who have had to detour around salty sea water in the roadway.

Olsen, in a white paper distributed to his fellow working group members, believes these problems will become increasingly common and will begin to affect downtown as well.

With 2 feet of sea level rise in a few decades, Olsen said, "it is theoretically possible that many of the existing (city) drainage systems in certain older neighborhoods will fail to operate for much of the year." Does that grab your attention?

WHAT ARE OUR PRIORITIES?

This is pretty alarming stuff, and yet it just doesn't seem to rate high on the list of things city leaders are talking about contributing real resources toward.

As I've noted before, Mayor Lenny Curry repeatedly refused to say in an editorial board meeting during his re-election campaign that the downtown area around TIAA Bank Field is a place City Hall needs to start thinking about protecting from sea-level rise and storm surge. This is relevant because Jaguars owner Shad Khan is planning a massive $2.5 billion development that will envelop the entire area, including Metropolitan Park along the waterfront. So why not acknowledge that those investments -- which, you can safely bet, will include tens of millions of taxpayer dollars -- will need to be protected?

Curry may not admit it, but his administration has.

Tucked into the city's application for federal grant money to tear down the functional Hart Bridge ramps -- which we've been told must happen for Khan's development to take shape -- city officials concede they "will address the flooding issues in recent years caused by the rising water level of the St. Johns River." The application includes some general pledges the city is looking into solutions -- like rebuilding flood walls (did this project really need to happen for the city to do that?) -- and that any future development in the area will have a resiliency plan.

Tearing down a functional road already seems like a marginal project for federal taxpayers to chip in on. The federal Transportation Department's inspector general should come gunning for that money back if the city reneges on its promise to compensate for sea-level rise and resiliency issues in the area.

SIMPLE SOLUTION

Olsen, the coastal engineer, has proposed that the working group simply expand the boundaries of what is included in its sea-level rise study to include the places that flooded during Hurricane Irma. It's hard to think of any possible objections to this straightforward, logical suggestion. For now, the group is still studying Olsen's work and agreed to consider that. Good.

In addition to Khan's plans, let's not forget whatever takes the place of the Jacksonville Landing, which is set to be demolished; and the development underway on the Southbank along the river; and of course the Downtown Investment Authority's little social experiment of putting a Ferris wheel-type thing up at the site of the Berkman II, which also looks like it will include a taxpayer-funded hotel. This is also about people's homes, and their lives, and our future as a city. There isn't room for expediency here.

At the bottom of his white paper, Olsen had one more recommendation: The group should agree that "elected officials and the general public need to fully understand the issue(s) and consequences of future flooding vulnerability ..."

Elected officials? Let's not get carried away.

Nate Monroe's City column appears every Thursday and [email protected], (904) 359-4289

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