Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee Meeting - 07/23/2024

all right okay um my name is Peter brace I'm chair of the coastal resilience advisory committee I want to call this meeting uh to order for Tuesday July 23rd 2024 um I'm going to read the um script for remotely the abbreviated script for remotely condu conducting uh open meetings good morning this is this meeting is being uh audio and video recorded Please be aware that other people may be able to see you and take care not to share your devices screen anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording please silence all devices and phones for items with public comment after committee members have finish their discussion on an agenda item the chair will afford May afford uh members of the public who wish to speak um up to three minutes members of the public who wish to speak must State their name any affiliations and to give public comment you must be recognized by the chair and speak through the chair there's to be no cross talk with others in the attend in attendance in the interest um in efficient use of our time please speak through the chair to be recognized for making a public comment use the raise hand feature by clicking on the reactions tab at the bottom of your Zoom screen and then click on the raise hand button when you finished your comment please click the lower hand button it's important for me to know note that the crack isn't required by law to take public comment we do so because we need your invaluable input we view public comment as a privilege so please remain respectful in your comments and do not disparage others or the members of this committee okay um at this time we'll take public comment on issues that are not on this agenda sorry Peter a roll call vote for or sorry roll call for the attendees who are here um and then the speakers okay um okay um so for the committee Tim bran here John kitner here Gary Beller here Doug Rose here Rachel Freeman here uh where are we here Joanna roach here um Matt Fe you there Matt here okay you hear me yeah y can hear you hello okay so anticipated speakers Trevor Johnson here and Allison kapiki okay Kelly V hold on hold on hold on not done yet Kelly van Balin I'm here okay and then who else Leah I think that's it right uh Julie Conroy okay Julie Conroy I'm here okay and then Michelle McDonald but I'm not sure if she'll be speaking or not okay all right very good and markette and Mark wette and I am here okay great let everybody so public comment you have something to say that has nothing to do with today's agenda um you can have three minutes um we will not discuss it we if it's if it warrants an agenda item we may put it on a future agenda um but uh go ahead if anyone please use the raise the hand feature identify yourself in your affiliation if you have something to say Peter it's Dean I can't find my raise the hand button I'm kicking you off then I I do have just a brief very brief public comment please yes and first of all two things I apologize that my video is not working and D yes who do you who do you represent oh I I am the um administrative coordinator for the ncka coastal Conservancy okay and I did want to also just say hello to Trevor and that it's good to see him after all of this time um our comments are two and they're very brief one is to please draw your attention to the memorandum we sent to the Conservation Commission and copied you in it's in your pocket and we thank Leah for including it and it just draws your attention focus you're breaking up the end the public beach below the bluff in sconet um out here in Squam Peter that could be part of the reason um so we just wanted to bring this to your attention the while the Conservation Commission wrestled with what to do with the geot tubes the um the current geot tubes have no medication no maintenance no monitoring and the um harmful impacts on the public beach see where the geot tubes are just increasing and then the second item we wanted to bring to your attention and we and suggest that maybe you might might want to put this on your agenda as you know uh the town engaged with arcadis um in January of 2022 to do a relocation project for Northern Baxter Road and that um contract has been amended two times the most recently at the by the select board at a meeting in June and that contract was EXT ended another year at an additional cost of 248,000 which brings the total amount of money spent on just the planning for the relocation to about $1.2 million we have asked for a copy of the uh contract Amendment just so that we have ideas of sort of what are the deliverables and what is the new time frame and we're waiting to receive that as you know this is the first kind of large scale planning for relocation on Nantucket and clearly it's running into some delays and it's costing quite a bit of money so we thought this might be a good item for you to put on your agenda to just have an update from the town officials who are working on it by way of information so you can keep yourself informed about what's happening or not happening thank you all right thanks Dean um okay approval of or is there any other public comment okay hearing none approval of the minutes uh May 14 2024 May 28 2024 and June 25 2024 do we have any changes to any of these minutes any corrections any additions Matt Fe I'll move approval Peter okay Matt do I have a second second okay moves by Matt fee second head by Tim bra um all in favor roll call vote I'll take um John kitner hi Gary Beller hi Doug Rose hi Matt fee hi Rachel Freeman hi Joanna roach hi um do I have everybody Tim brain sorry Hi um and chair votes I okay um okay introduction to the new planning board representative John kitner uh yeah good morning everybody um well just quickly um I've been a yearound resident on the island since um the early 2000s uh I was born in the UK but um became a US citizen u a few years back um I fully retired in uh from my businesses in um the end of 2021 and uh started my public service um uh commitments which started with um I became an large member of the short turn Rental Work group uh back in 2022 uh appointed by the select board um in 2023 um again appointed by the select board as the alternate uh member for the planning board um and then this year in May um I was appointed to a full planning board member by the select board and planning board um uh members um since joining the planning board I'm also a member of the N NP and EDC um and enjoying that I am still very much involved in trying to bring some regulation to the short-term rental situation uh I was a member of one of the groups that um crafted the select board article which is a great one um that'll be voted on in September and we believe it's um uh an excellent compromise of uh both sides of the aisle I would ask you if I may um sometime between now and September 17th to please read article one the select board um shter rental article and if you agree with it please show up and vote for it and um encourage others to to do the same every vote is going to account in this very polarized uh situation um just to finish up my main goal on the board on the crack board is to look for opportunities for crack and the planning board to uh support each other's initiatives uh at this point uh it's a little bit early on so I'm not sure what they might those initiatives might be but um whatever they comes up I'll do my best to pursue them as they arise um yeah that's that's it um thank you all right thanks very much John and Welcome to our committee um GL to be here okay um okay appointment of officers I have it I have the information that says that Sarah Boyce is willing to continue as Vice chair and I'm willing to continue as chair um unless anybody wants to challenge me don't all jump up at once that's all right I'm good with it I make a motion that we accept both of those uh as chair and vice chair um we also need sorry Matt we also need somebody to volunteer to be secretary I was doing the easy stuff first okay I'll sec I'll second Matt's motion okay that's fine Matt motioned uh to approve the the chair and the vice chair uh Doug um seconded roll call vote uh Gary Beller can't hear you Gary okay hi John kishner hi Doug Rose hi Rachel Freeman hi Tim brain hi Matt Fe hi Joanna roach I and the chair votes I okay the fun one who's it gonna be we got to have a secretary um yeah guys we got to have a secretary someone's got to volunteer can I ask a question there could be co- secretaries too right can take turns what's question Tim could someone um outline specifically what the duties of the secretary are you're basically taking the minutes um and giving them back to us and from somebody who's done the minutes for shab for eons and does the minutes for the harbor plan action committee it can be pretty much what you want you know you can just do the decisions if you want provide basic information they can be detailed it serves us better if they're more detailed um what I do when I do minutes um is I'm taking notes throughout but not serious notes and then I watch the Youtube video so essentially watching the meeting and preparing the minutes that way and I tend to be more wordy and and more detailed because I was a reporter once and so I just can't help myself um I just think that it's better if there's a better record but you you don't have to follow that at all you just do the basic stuff um so like Rachel said we can have two so if someone else would like to volunteer and Jim if few were into it then we'd have two people that could fill in for each other as they as they worked it out I I'm willing to give it a try Okay Rachel your hand is up um I was I was going to say I'm willing to give it a try is is it possible to split it three ways having been co-chair or co- secretary before or is that is that off the table I don't know I think two is enough okay um I I could help it there's absolutely nobody else minutes so not my horte but I'm I'm know they need to get done okay awesome thank you thanks to both of you guarante good I'll be it's there's no way you can fail us except not doing them so um so okay can we get a motion from somebody for this for Rachel and for Rachel Freeman and um Tim brain to do the minutes to be secretaries i s move Gary moved um second from somebody a second it's Matt second from Doug Rose okay roll call vote John kitner hi Gary Beller hi Rachel Freeman hi Doug Rose hi and thanks guys Tim brain hi Matt Fe hi hi okay and Joanna roach hi and thank and CH to start taking notes okay uh which one of you guys wants to do it today I okay thanks Rachel um okay so got that fun stuff out of the way number seven conversation with Mark wette director of wac comet water company about the impacts of seal of rise on nus oer all you mark thanks for having me um as you guys know that's the most important thing it just isn't the infrastructure for us that we have to worry about and place ing hydrants with the sea level rises but as sea level rises the groundwater level is going to rise uh and it's not equal it's actually a lesser sea level rise creates a greater ground level rise so it's not a onetoone movement what that does is can create where there aren't Wetlands now could be Wetlands uh that has localized groundwater flow could change as the sea level rises and the groundw water level rises creating different wetlands and localized flow patterns that are different than what we see now um luckily for us our wells are centrally located in the middle of the island so it might not be an immediate impact but eventually it could be an impact um the change in flow directions with everything that's going on with the contaminants we're looking at like P at the airport area Toms way and different locations throughout the island if you start changing localized groundwater flow uh those contaminants could move places that they weren't going to move previously so it's kind of a challenging thing for our model we have a 3D we're working on a 3D groundwater model that's being finalized uh where we can look at what happens if in certain areas say Washington Street Easton hbert Avenue that groundwater comes up those wetlands and ponded areas get bigger and what does that do to the flow direction of our aquafer on the edges of the island uh that would be the largest impact for us so it's not it's not just it's not just the utilities and the distribution system itself but the groundwater in the a localized groundwater flow Direction that's our biggest concern with sea level rise and it's it's going to be hard to predict that with our models um because we really don't know what those impacts will be and another large concern is if that happens then the storm water has to be collected storm water drainage is improved and for us at wac Comet storm water is hugely important because that's just recharging back into our aquafer so when we install catch basins to collect this water we're giving it a pathway down to the aquafer if we have to add more because of sea level rise ground water level rises now we're adding more storm water drainage in places that we didn't have it before that was naturally just going in instead of collecting it and mounding it in a catch Basin location or several Le pits or even leech fields and trenches and what they're doing now with the roads using a lot of those big infiltration basins to take care of that when you do a big infiltration Basin to take care of like the storm water on a in a parking lot like stoping shop you create a localized mounding which changes the local groundwater flow Direction so it impacts us in different ways mainly in in groundwater flow Direction and the transport of whatever's in the water whether it's clean water or dirty water uh we have to figure out where that water is going to move based on that mounding but a lot of our stuff as far as infrastructure wise uh you know currently a lot of our water Ms downtown are already underwater uh it doesn't take much to dig on eastn street and you're already in groundwater you a couple shovels and and you're there so for us it's it's moving forward modeling that uh our model goes back we've looked all the way back like a over a 600 year time projecting back with the model of what it looked like and what it looks like now and we've Incorporated the sea level rise to now and going forward I would probably rely on on this committee and others uh to help us get the information and and EXP expected numbers that we can throw into the model to make those predictions of where where the mounding is going to take place um I don't know I don't readily have that information I'm going to be looking for help when we get to that point hopefully with with with your help and and others on the island we can kind of figure out and work together what we think it's going to be 50 60 you know out to 100 years from now what's it going to look like and uh that will have impacts on our future Well locations impacts on our withdrawal permit um right now our closest well to to the coast is probably North pasture which is by the tank off pulpus road by the Girl Scout camp just past Don Allen Don Allen Ford uh again it's up on a hill it it's it's there but it really affects the localized groundwater flow and that could affect our water withdrawal permit because we cannot impact any any Wetlands or any any type of protected space that could be that the map could change because of the increase in the Wetland area so it it could eventually affect our water withdrawal permit and to model that is a difficult thing and but we're working on trying to to do that okay um are you finished yep thank you I we have we'll have questions but I just want to thank you for for a thorough is way better than I expected to learn all that information and yes we'll absolutely keep you updated so you can keep your models up to date and so that you can pivot and react as as as as things progress the the minute done you guys will be like one of the first groups I'll contact and maybe we can meet here at Comet we can look at the model on the big screen and uh and once we learn how to do it and use it uh we can actually have set up meeting times where we can all sit down together and put numbers in so you know say it whatever there's a 10-inch rise over 15 20 years whatever that time frame is put that into the model run the model and it will show or should show with some accuracy what's going to happen to the wetlands and what kind of storm water drainage we're going to have to design to take care of that and how that impacts the aquafer itself and it's and you know it's interesting now that know the Conservation Commission just they updated their regulations and seems like seems like this will have an impact on you know if wetlands are going to be created in areas that they weren't created before because of rising Rising groundwater and also rising sea level um the information you have would be good to go to them so that maybe they're going to be able to um make their changes sooner than they thought they would so right and I and I know the storm water uh I know I know David Gray and the sewer Department's taking over storm water and they're working on currently working on a reg on their regulations for a storm water regulation set so they'll actually be this is what you have to do if you do a subdivision or a development this what you have to put in during construction to maintain the storm water not just washing out and silting up the roads in the catch Basin so there's going to be a set of regulations that will help guide where that storm water is going to have to go but with the models help we might be able to predict and then budget out you know for Capital expenditures you know and like a 10-year Capital plan try to figure out where we're going to have to go and what kind of money that's going to take to do it hey that's a and that's good that you're you're thinking that way since we've already met with all the chairman uh and vice chairman of the various regulatory uh boards to get from them how we can um up incorporate SE rise I'm sorry Coastal resiliance um policies into their regulations um it's sort of a next step for us right um so so Doug do you have something thank you Peter uh Mark well welcome to crack and thank you for a fascinating overview I I think I can safely say everyone uh in Nantucket has um same level of concern over the welfare of the aquafer but I imagine the vast majority myself included also have very little clue as to how it works so to know that you're working on a 3D model is to me very exciting and interesting and I I for one would love to uh take you up on your offer if if crack could do a field trip and and see some of the work that you have in progress the question I guess uh I've got a thousand questions going through my mind as you were talking about the foremost among them I think was sort of an it was inspired by some of the conversations that Peter alluded to where we've been meeting with the various chair people and vice chairs of the various regulatory committees commissions and boards and one theme seemed to come out over and over again which was that uh each of those committees and and and commissions are working in in sort of a a vacuum they they are operating within their own uh relevant regulatory framework right and too often it seems uh one regulatory framework sort of runs at at odds with another regulatory framework one of the ones that uh Ray Pole from HDC talked about was how uh or I guess it was Malcolm Malcolm McNab mentioned something about how the HTC had recently approved a project which actually would would violate uh the Board of Health regulations and and through no fault of anyone's I guess my question for you is can you imagine uh the town uh getting to a point where we could bring together all these regulatory Frameworks in a more coherent way where your concerns would be balanced with the concerns of the zba and concom and you know the whole alphabet soup of regulatory uh commissions I know this is a long question but you know what I'm asking for is this is there a way to knit these all together somehow I I guess that's what I'm asking I I think there is and I think we've been kind of moving in that direction a little bit better uh the communication's getting a lot better between different groups and different departments uh I have standing meetings now with David Gray and Sewer which we never used to do uh we get involved with conservation a lot Je Carlson is a major player for me uh when I do these models and when I drill and I I try to collect geophysical data through St different studies I I get Jeff involved because a lot of the things he's looking at I'm looking at I've actually added parts of our model uh with Jeff and his recommendations to look at like the coastal zones of the aquifer so if you go out to monoy at low tide uh right there at the end of monoy where the where the dingies are you the birds are drinking the water pouring out of the beach birds don't drink salt water they drink fresh water our bowl and aquafer is full and it's coming out the edges our goal my worry isn't the abundance that our aquifer has it's when regulations take place that have to do with protection um you know I worry about P I worry about all chemicals I worry about car washes I I worry about the salt we use on the roads the last five or six years that never used to happen there was a standing agreement with water and DPW that that stuff just didn't go down this last winter everybody's car is completely covered in in assault material that can impact our gravel our gravel pack Wells just same as pasas if I have too much chloride from the sodium products being put down the deicing agents I got to close the well down so it isn't just one chemical or another that scares me they all scare me and those regulations need to be talked and discussed and all together as one and that's why like the sea level rise is very important and I want to get you guys involved when the model's ready is because all the localized stuff that we do whether it is with something concom is putting forward or the Board of Health with private Wells and their regulations and all that and in the storm waterer rigs it all affects me because I'm underneath all of it the aquifer is on the bottom right I'm going to receive whatever they do on top I'm going to catch so I really want to make sure that we're involved and all parties have opinions expressed and and ideas shared because if we don't something's going to happen and something's going to be missed and it could be too late uh and I don't want to ever get to the point where it's too late because we didn't have a conversation with with some person or a board or a committee um and I know everybody's really busy and and we have a lot of meetings but maybe maybe an idea of a quarterly meeting where where where a bunch of us can get together you know it doesn't have to be a long thing maybe it's once a quarter the Water Commission meets with you guys and we have a shared meeting together to find out what you're doing what we're doing we could pull you know concom in and maybe we do it once or twice three times four times a year and see how it goes it doesn't have to be monthly doesn't have to be maybe quarterly too much I don't know but maybe we come up with an idea like that where we try it once or twice a year a couple times a year we get together as a group and uh just throw ideas out of what we're all working on and what new regulations they think are going to come forward that's going to impact all of us and again uh I I I receive everything that's done on top so whether it's construction related storm water related septic system regulations really affect me um all of it affects the groundwater so we all have to get together share ideas and what's and what's happening if we're gonna if we're going to protect it the best we can thanks a lot Mark um go ahead John um thank you chair uh through you hey Mark I don't know whether you remember me but about 8 to 10 years ago um I sat in your office a couple of times and you explained everything aquafer and groundwater um levels to me um which was very I still remember it all um you know I think the ideas that have been floated around shared meetings um is a great is great Mark but I I guess I have a narrower question um you know I'm a new member of the of the planning board um is it premature for you to sit down you know at one of our planning board meetings and um just orientate the board members on the things that you've just gone through here um just so that you know their people can start to put things into their you know into their brains about what this might mean and when it might mean something and you know and if it's premature Mark that's fine just tell me it's premature um or is that something that you think would be useful at this point I think anytime we can talk about what the acfer is and how it operates it's a good thing um we've had great communication with the planning board and the planning department uh every time there's a subdivision plan you know I'm notified right away I get the PDF CAD files I get to look at the design and make comments I just received an email the other day about upcoming projects that are going to go through you guys um and that's awesome because I get to get a chance to sit down with a couple of the guys here in the office and go over what it means for us extending water mains and supplying water and and really looking at the storm water stuff for the commercial projects because that really impacts us and uh but anytime anytime to sit in front of a group and explain aquafer and how important it is to protect it you know I don't think that's ever premature okay great thanks so much great thanks John thanks Mark Leah you have something to say yeah uh thanks Mar for coming today very very interesting and I'm happy to share the sea level rise scenarios um with you I just had a clarifying question so with your 3D model did you say that you can input different sea level rise scenarios and then that'll get worked up and you can figure out what the the depth to groundwater is yeah so what what we were doing when we we first started doing all these geophysics to look at the aquafer that's the reason I was hired 25 years ago we came up and and found some information that no one knew was I mean we totally changed the whole aquafor map everything about it changed our work during that work uh Team of scientist that were helping us were really interested in the glacial period how it built our aquifer so we actually they actually have a model right now that shows groundwater elevations during the last glaciation and how it's changed over seven or eight 9,000 years to where it is right now uh then we took that and we're throwing that in our newer model that's going to be the current model to find out what's going to happen going forward um and we should be able to at the end of this thing literally plug in pick a number inches feet whatever you want to do of sea level rise and run that model and and show us how it changes the groundwater contour map of the island that's that's excellent yeah tremendously helpful I just signed a I just signed a contract uh with the company doing it uh they're they're they very specialized they just got bought up by GZA it's Emory and Garrett out of New Hampshire all they are hydr geologist all they do is study groundwater that's all they do don't do anything else and uh I'm excited for it I hope it works I I know a model is only good as the data in equals the data out that's why I'm not I know about sea level rise but I'm not as advanced in some of what's going on as you guys that's why I wanted to get you guys involved when we get the model ready so we're putting in the right number that are realistic and that are are going to give us the information we need all right thanks Mark are there any other uh committee members that have comments or questions okay we'll take we'll take public comments and questions uh no more than three minutes first on top is Bruce Mandel go ahead Bruce very much uh very quickly we're concerned about groundwater out in madak uh couple of issues Mark if you might comment after I'm done speaking uh one is the unlined uh cell at the landfill uh Town's in violation of mining it and it's full of past containing materials and every time it rains you know the water soaks through it into the the perched aquifer here in madut uh and I'd like to you know find out how we can focus on perhaps getting that mind uh the other issue is uh the DPW is trying to move its office compound because of fears of eventual seise uh and uh they're looking for funds to do that but there are no plans to help if the sea level rises enough to cause the DPW compound to need to be relocated how are we going to access madut how are we going to access the landfill uh Tech engineering suggested we raise the roadbed of the massao bridge by a foot and a half uh and the same with the ases avenue bridge and and the the mut Road portion around the landfill and the uh culs but the the main concern here is groundwater and that the unlined landfill cell do you have any thoughts on that you could share with us well I I know it's a concern for for all of us here at Wacom especially me anything with the landfill anything at the Wastewater Plant places where we're bringing what we don't want in disposing of uh leads to there's going to be contamination from all that stuff uh that's why I really want to get this model done so we could actually look at that area in mut and see if it's going to change the local Direction you know if the sea level rises is it still going to flow towards Long Pond or are we going to change the direction of that flow locally before it moves back to Long Pond um we have been I think there's going to be some more information coming out about the landfill I know I know there's a few committees and I know Drew and those guys have been at the DPW have been looking at that and obviously if we've got to move the DPW because it gets that high Uh something's going to have to be done with a landfill uh and the road sure we could raise the road and the infrastructure that goes with that but if it continues to rise I mean I don't know do you just keep adding feet to the bridge and the culverts it's it's a it's a hard question to answer I mean it could have a huge impact on everything well thank you for that answer I guess eventually mtic will become an island h i I hope not but I mean we don't know with the with the ditches in the creeks and you know you you live out there it's a lot there's a lot of exposed groundwater already um you know a lot of wetlands so sea level rise that's one of the one of the places there the hbert Avenue BR Point area uh North Beach Street Street a lot of areas in mut uh anywhere around any ponds you know ponds will rise their sea level will rise so the whole Maya Comet area with sea level rise those ponds are going to rise um it's going to have a big impact on a lot of areas on the island not just madak oh thank you for your comments and uh Peter uh if the committee could focus a little bit on the West End we'd appreciate it too okay Bruce thanks your comments uh is there any other public comment okay thank you very much Mark thanks everybody who asked questions we're not done talking about this we definitely want to come over to you and see that model when you get it ready Mark without a doubt you guys will be the one of my first calls and I like the idea of quarterly meetings too so we'll work we'll work something out with that yeah I'd be up for that do J even just the first one just to see if it's worth it and how we do it and just to everybody get on the same page awesome all right thank you um okay so um number eight presentation and discussion on new tools for visualizing communicating and assessing sea level rise and close to flood Risk by climate controls Allison kapiki coordinator for outreach and Communications flood Vision at climate control and Kelly van Balin project manager for sea level rise team at climate climate Central um okay go ahead you guys hi everybody thanks so much for having us um I'm gonna share my screen if that's okay because the visualizations that we've created are um very visual so let me just make sure everybody can see this and I'll do the slideshow and then hopefully I can also see my notes hold on I'm going to see if I can just stop sh for a second sorry I want to get my notes this we can just keep going um screen Alison do you want me to share my screen and then you can have your notes on your yeah I could do that as well Alison if you'd like oh Kell yeah Kelly can do it if Kelly can do it then then I can actually see my notes so the problem I have two screens but the one the one blows up we go thanks Kelly um I'm Alison Kiki I'm the coordinator um for outreach and Communications around uh flood vision and our edge of America Tour which we'll talk about in a second and Kelly van Balon is uh the pro uh program manager on our sea level rise program um and so what we're talking about today are these new visualizations uh that we've created to show the risk of sea level rise and and coastal flooding so if you can imagine um hurricane heading towards possibly say the Texas coast um and they're warning that the you know that that the flood is about to that there's high risk of significant flooding go ahead and there's a school in the way of this hurricane um and what we can show with our uh science-based visuals is what that flooding might look like for the school go ahead um and so what we're talking with lots of officials um in all these states is what they're worried about our critical facil fa ities or streets um we can show the next one here's an um here's a street with 5T above um 5T of water above the roadway and the next one and here's here's and we can show different levels of that flooding um based on uh what the storm is predicted to be so this is this is in Texas and this is a uh um this is an evacuation route that they're worried about okay so uh climate Central um just so you know what we we are we're basically making these so that we can um work with uh communities like yours and commissions like your commission um to inform the public of the risk that they're going to be facing what we've um found is that you know um to do storytelling about climate impacts and to raise awareness in your local community sometimes better to do it with visuals than with maps um climate Central is a nonprofit organization we're dedicated to creating tools and Communications about climate change to accelerate responses and um to climate change at all levels we're a very eclectic crew just so everybody knows we are a group of climate and computational scientists software programmers and Engineers meteorologists policy walks former journalists Peter um we have a sea level rise program that has a team dedicated to this flood Vision tool but we also have a number of popular mapping programs including the coastal risk screening tool and risk finder which allows users to get summaries of populations and infrastructure at risk and and Kelly's a pro at these and if you have questions for her about our other mapping tools afterwards please ask so and I just want to show you what um our climate matters program Kelly if you can go to the next one yeah um about 15 years ago the smarter folks that created our organization and Folks at Yale um climate communic ations uh found out that the scientists that Americans trust the most are this their local weather caster and so we've been working with meteorologists across the country for the last 15 years and giving them a weekly uh data and Graphics so that they can um uh talk about um climate impacts at the very local level um and while this is a flood presentation I do know that all of those working in resilience and climate adaptation had to deal with multiple hazards so when we presented a few a few weeks ago we were in Utah it was at the same time that emergency managers in New Mexico had to shift from fighting fires to performing flood rescues so you can always sign up for our climate matters programs it's free and um our Graphics are very useful if you're trying to communicate heat events or any other extreme weather events and the next one I'll show you one of our other new newest and greatest tools that um folks might um want to look at this is the climate shift index and it reveals how much climate change influences the temperature on a particular day so if you if you look at this one this is um June 25th 2024 so this is when the earlier this year you were seeing that one of those big heat waves that was impacting the west and the southeast and you can see in those dark red areas that what it means is that climate change made the conditions at least five times more likely so that this is you know the human human induced climate change is is having an effect on our daily temperatures um next yeah so this is also we've been doing um work on how much the climate change has been affecting the flooding days um and human days so you sorry human cause blood days these are the orange is all the human cause compared to what the blue which would been which would have been natural um and we've studied the impact of human cause sea level rise on the economic damage from storms like Sandy um as well and then finally we have a local uh journalism program um we work with local meteorologists across the country we also partner with local journalists we know the New York Times and and the Washington Post and the Boston Globe have resources um to do uh major reporting um but we know that a lot of the local journalists are actually the ones that local uh Americans also trust the most and so we're working with them um with data and graphics and and um and reporting to help them uh talk about climate impacts as well as Solutions and finally I'll get back to flood Vision so this is our flood Rover um this is the second vehicle that uh We've developed this is a Ford 150 lightning and it's um outfitted with a with a rig on top um it has two stere stereoscopic cameras on each side um we connect this with light um and GPS positioning so that we can get very very very precise um um visualizations as we drive so if you think about it as Google Street View but for coastal flooding um and so as we drive the flood Rover along we can take snapshots of all of the structures and anything along the way and we've we're using um uh AI also to to train it to um identify first floor elevations um and so we are on the edge of America Tour we started at the Blue Hill in Blue Hill main at their wastewater treatment plant um I hear you know as obviously wastewater treatment is um a problem in many areas many coastal areas their waist Wier treatment plan is only 12 inches above the high tide line and blue hill has a hospital and pharmacies and a number of businesses that serve many communities on that Peninsula so that we we you know we sat down with a group of locals um and talked about um and collected their stories on the on the impacts that they're seeing and that they've been seeing over the years um we are going to be going all the way to Texas we are currently in New York uh and out on Long Island today looking for uh uh looking to to document the flood risk um here's what our interface looks like this is the inside um this is where we were on Nantucket a few weeks ago um um on the left side you can see that we can select different scenarios uh to to visualize whether we just select a um feet above the road level to show you could say if you know what a two- foot flood want wants to look like or you can do it above the um the average high tide line um we can also put in uh sea level rise uh projections from from Noah and the ipcc and we can do that at De at different decades and add on different floods and I will show you what those look like when you're in tet okay yeah and this was our our great host so we do we do really say big thank you to Nantucket for for welcoming us and showing us where some of the places we should we should um collect the data so this is Arnold or two others sorry so I'm sure this is probably a location that um you are familiar with and sorry going back one so this is this is the Noah 2022 model uh intermediate High sea level rise scenario for 2050 with the 1% annual chance flood or that's the 100-year flood um the metadata shows that the water height is 5 feet 3 in above the average local high tideline so what these visualizations can show uh local people is this is what it's going to look like during a flood without having to go out there and put your lives at risk so that's you know we know people are worried about that um so the next one again this is um oops again this is another an Noah 2022 uh model for for the year 2050 this is the same scenario again the same scenario similar again 2050 and here's um yeah so Massachusetts has its own um Dynamic se- Lev rise models as I'm sure uh you know so what I did was I used their sea level rise scenarios um going forward for these next few uh slides and you can see so this next one um so this just shows you about 1 Point um 2 feet above the road of the but it's at the 5 feet um level above the the local high tidde line and this next one is 10 feet above local high tideline which is what the Massachusetts model predicts is the height for 2050 with a 1% storm on Easy Street just so you know and then finally you can see see this is again uh that similar uh 5T um above Easy Street above the above the average high tide line and again another 5T above the average high tide line and I think this is um an intersection of Francis and Washington Street and again different models so you can you can you can uh show people what it would look like during an event so anyway we would love to get um some of your feedback I know this is a public meeting so um if anybody has questions or reactions to these visualizations what our intent is as a um we are trying to work with communities to see how folks would use this what we are hearing from a lot of um local planners or 10wn Engineers is that they have uh they're trying to encourage folks to um to buy flood insurance in some places others want to do buyouts um and they see these visualizations as a way to you know encourage and to educate uh their local communities about the flooding um and we wanted to know what you think and what uh you think others reactions would be and how you might use these um and you know what we can do to improve them okay um and I can assume that the visualizations that you showed us those are those are completely without any of the recommendations in the CRP being implemented so it's it's worst case it's worst case scenario we as a community decided to do absolutely nothing and this is what could potentially happen to us if we don't do anything yes so it's a for me it looks like a good way to um well you know shock and awe like oh my God this is what it could be based on the current data um and you're gonna have people are gonna go that's crazy that's never going to happen oh my God you know I'm not worried you know look at it now it's no big deal and and just write us off yeah um but the more credibility that you guys can can put behind this the better chance you're going to have convincing people some people are just not going to accept it but um those are my initial thoughts are there any committee members that have thoughts that want to sh share with us nobody okay John go ahead you muted you're muted John sorry Peter so um Allison just remember that I'm a very new member of this board so um I'll probably have different views in six months time but I do think what Peter just said um my version of that would be I I think we have a trust issue on the island of um whether or not this is um real or not or you know really likely to happen and it you know it's a bit of an islandwide problem where where there is um for some areas of what's going to be very critical to us there is a lack of trust in even the data so I don't know what the answer to that is this seems like one answer to to to use this um perhaps um perhaps if there are some versions of this that are not you know 25 years out and not a once in a uh a 100e storm perhaps if there was some visualizations of things not that dramatic but but but perhaps more likely to happen um it it's just I'm struggling with how to to tell you you know what could we do to build trust um Peter is probably way more capable of of of of answering that but as a new person on the board uh and it's not a reflection on people or the board but the lack of trust in around this subject um I think is difficult when it comes to you know educating and getting money and so forth yeah thank you thank I just can I just jump in yeah um Leah what was the name of that movie we watched inundation district is that correct yes that's correct so John I I would hopefully Leah can put you on to this but inundation district is a documentary um documentary on the Redevelopment of section of Boston's Waterfront which more or less ignored um you know all the climate change warnings and now it's experiencing um sea level rise at you know sunny day flooding and um the potential for um what's going to happen and I mean it's already happening there so if you're trying to build trust you should have people watch that because that's that's a very good example of what could be coming our way if we don't do anything I think one of the one of the um suggestions that I've been you know working with journalists is to is to basically just weaken to the visualization at the most recent High flood right and the Northeast got hit hard in January and and recent in you multiple years those are um so putting the water above the average high tide line um around four feet is what's you would be the recent flooding that hit a lot of the Northeast and so so those are a little bit lower but they still show an impact so that's great and I want before I let Joanna say something I just want to say that you know because we're a government entity telling people this is coming and this is going to happen there's already a a level of distrust in government local state federal on up so U we've got that hurdle clear and I don't know how you can get people to read but if you if if all you have to do is read the articles in in the in the trusted organizations um news news media that talk about what we're talking about um all the information is out there um it's one way there's a thing that I subscribe to called daily climate.org which is uh it it basically GA gathers all the climate news of the day and sends it to you in your to your to your um inbox and then you can read about it so that it's not us the government saying oh watch out it's going to flood and we're in trouble and and then everyone saying oh yeah we've heard that before and um and then I'll just say the closer resilience advisory committee isn't going away we're still going to be here we're still going to be hammering this home hopefully people hear us we're in public Outreach mode now so um anyway yeah Peter yeah just a a follow-up comment because like I was trying to say this isn't about lack of trus in a particular organization or uh I I wasn't trying to suggest that at all what I was wondering about is um you know there there is a value to um getting a few really trusted individuals on our Island to speak out for us I I'll give you some examples Nathaniel filb would be one um Dr lepry would be one um a guy like Harvey young would be one and you know if we could get some obviously well-respected 100% trusted people to speak out um and deliver some of our messages that might be um a building block than to get people to go and read about stuff and watch movies and so forth but um that's just a just a suggestion that we might want to think about is you know getting some trusted iseland individual yeah okay thanks John you w to go ahead Joanna hi um thank you Peter um I thought that the photo illustrations were very I think what and I appreciate what um John has said I think that you know part of what we need to do as our job here is to tell this story in a way that isn't frightening but is compelling and I I think that these photos can help but I don't think that they can be the only part of the message and I I so so I would like to you know understand how these have rolled out in other communities maybe and you know sort of what additional stakeholders were involved I guess I think I want more context sure um some of the um government officials that we've been uh talking to these are very strong for um everybody's excited about them for um getting funding basically for mitigation projects and and um adaptation projects for um especially like in FEMA brick grants and things like that so that that's become um that's one thing that we hope people will use these for and again we're we're um we've done a little bit of you know a sample all the way down the coast these are these are free for um your organizations to use we're not focusing on private residences we're not going to put those out um We Believe The Trusted government organization local government organizations can do that we'll look at iconic places and critical facilities and public places um to to do the messaging um also I agree with you uh what we've learned is that um leading these stories these climate stories with um Solutions and and hope and what are the what are the things that people can do to make sure that this scenario isn't what actually is the future we're hoping to say that if you can you know if you can see the future you can change the future um and that's what these visualizations um you know and they're science-based so and there are people who don't um actually trust the science so so we do get that um the other thing that people have um uh how us focus on is to use places that are memorable and part of their kind of um uh you know their um uh places that they want to save right so for future generations and and that type of thing and that's supposed to be very strong in messaging is um more people are prone to do something and take action if it's to save something for the Next Generation so we have heard that from some of the um the messaging experts um so so that but um um I agree with you so besides grants um other parts of the United States and in many communities um there's not been a huge uptake of flood insurance um that's another um thing that we're working on um homes cannot be part of the FEMA buyout program unless they have are part of the national flood insurance program so that might not be something in your community but it it is it is important in other communities and this is a piece of that thanks Alison uh Leah go ahead thanks Peter and thank you Allison for presenting today um when we spoke a couple weeks ago I was telling you that you know the culture residance advisory committee is embarking on um public Outreach and I was just curious I know that you used to be a journalist and how do we tried to contact or we have tried to contact the media to highlight what the culer res advisory committee is doing you know the co all about the town's castal resilience plan and the different projects that are being implemented but curious if you have any suggestions of um how to improve that conversation um well first um I would yeah any names of journalists you want us to nudge a little bit I can get our partnership journalism uh program to you know put a little package together and and you know send it over um so sometimes if it comes from uh you know a source a science-based you know we we're not local but we work with locals um and that's that might be it might be helpful um usually journalists use our all of our they use our resources during an event so when a heat event happens people pick up our our resources and they remember so it's it's okay for us to keep kind of getting into their inbox on a weekly basis or whatever and when an event happens then they remember us and they say oh we need your visuals or we need your graphics um and that's true I think that's going to be very true if this is as in you know active um a flood you know a flood or hurricane season as we predict we were already contacted by folks in Texas we had done a little bit of testing in Texas um with the flood River last year and The Weather Channel and a couple other um uh journalists reached out to us for what would it look like for you know the when barel came through so I I I think that's a um you know it's the phrase don't let um you know um a disaster it's an a disaster is a terrible thing it's also a major opportunity to teach people you know so so you just have to remember for any of these flood events uh don't let up don't let up on the gas on on you know on your Outreach and your um I would I would really that's when you have to push a little bit thank you Allison go ahead Gary thank you Peter Alison these are very very interesting and um I think the pictures uh the visualizations are extremely um powerful but um my my thought process is that if you go to and what you showed us is 2050 and seems to be uh far enough out so that people won't perhaps worry about it too much especially people in my age in the 80s aren't too worried about 2050 right now but um so my question is to two questions first um are we able to take a look at 2030 2035 and 2040 that's the first question and the second question is uh is there an opportunity for people I happen to live downtown in bro in a flood zone on Willard Street and the question is if I wanted to see what my street would look like in 2030 or 2035 am I able to do that is there enough in the system that that will allow me to actually uh take a look at what's going to happen here in six years or eight years or nine years those are great questions uh we can do uh by decade so 2030 2040 2050 2050 is uh a reason we picked that one a lot is the further um you the the the science is a little bit better at predicting a little bit further out in in in one sense but it is also the life of a mortgage so if someone is buying a property now a 30-year mortgage 2050 happens during that time so it's one of the the reasons that you know we we pick that um time but we can do um we can do 2030 that there won't be as dramatic uh showing of water I think the 2030 is important if you show what would happen in 2030 and then you you do two things you show 20 30 and then you add what would happen in a big storm I know everybody here is a 100e storm and it's not supposed to happen for another hundred years but they've been recurring almost back to back right and they you know a lot of the research is showing that these quote 100-year storms are going to be happening almost on an annual basis within the next 30 Years so I think that's the um it's a good combination um secondly yes so if we have passs by your property we would have that data in the in the system what we're trying to do here at um uh climate Central is to fundraise enough so that we can house all this data um and visualizations with a trusted at a trusted source so I can you know easily go for anybody here who wants to get some locations and see if I can you know if it's uh to show a streetcape or or something and and I can work with um Leah to get a package of visualizations that would work for this committee and show different scenarios and then you know it's put into your trusted hands so you can work with your community on that um what we'd really like to do is house it at a place like Noah's uh cant organizations which have um you know uh a presence in every single state um they love that idea that way it can be ible to a community like yours um and they can work with you on how to get how to get the information out there um we do worry about you know privacy obviously um we don't want to devalue anybody's Homes at this point we do want to though you know show The Realistic potential of the future because the home will be devalued um if we don't do something about this now so so those are good questions and I can follow up with Leah and we can um you know if everybody gives her a number of location I can look at where we got to on the um on the island and put together a package in the next few weeks uh so that you will have this um and again if a storm is approaching I can also get out those visualizations for anybody who you know if there's a storm surge predicted we can look at what that would look like that's great thank you Allison thanks Gary are there any other crack members that have questions okay um other there any members of the public that have questions okay thanks everybody thanks Allison thank you yeah I can I can definitely see us coming back to you uh with with various places on the island for you to check out if that's possible um y okay yep and Kelly we can stop sharing now I think that's great thanks for being my co-pilot Kelly okay problem um item number nine update discussion on the flood risk assessment and Alternatives evaluation for the feasibility study and designed for flood mitigation on easy street by arcadis staff members Bill Casey project manager and engineer Julie Conroy senior resilience specialist and Trevor Johnson Senior resilience planner okay go ahead guys thank you so much for having us can you all hear me okay yes okay thank you um so we in the interest of time we're just going to go through this um kind of at a a quick high level um I think it's important um I the discussion that was just uh brought up um Allison hopefully will stay on this call because I think one of the things that we want to focus on is the importance of the use of um Commonwealth uh supported data and modeling and in terms of visualizations we have plenty here that are based on existing storm conditions we'll show you um next slide uh we'll just uh go over the project I'll give you a very quick sort of overview of where we are at today but we'll want to focus on some key important pieces of information um in particular we want to describe the flood risk analysis um using the Commonwealth endorse Mass Coastal flood risk model um and our partners at wood Woods hle group um have developed and then of course um give you a sense of the alternative flood mitigation solutions that have been based on this localized data next slide and it's important for us to just pause here and note that this is you know this project the Easy Street project is a critical part of the flood mitigation options for downtown um Nantucket that were prioritized in the coastal resilience plan so to give a sort of frame of mind as to where where this all comes from uh next slide and we're about seven months into this 18month project um and so this is our schedule uh we've completed the existing conditions which gave us a baseline of understanding of all kinds of things environmental cultural historic resources as well as area hydrology as uh noted previously um uh development patterns and infrastructure and current and F future flood conditions so where we are today we're at July um we've completed a bit of work um but now we're sort of moving into the phase of of really digging into the alternative solutions that Trevor Trevor will describe uh in a bit next slide and so you know this is very familiar to you all the project area is sort of based around um Easy Street uh the town own rways um the adjacent Shoreline in the harbor Basin itself it includes Steamboat Warf and Broad Street because as Trevor will show there are some particular flood Pathways of concern that this these Alternatives will hope aim to address um and the predicted flood analysis shows that flooding spills into the surrounding area and so we also have included Oak Street um Chestnut Street southwater Street and portions of still dock in the project area next slide so as I mentioned in our initial slide you know in terms of visualizations there are precedents here um where there is um actual flood conditions that we can show at the end of storm this was from a recent noreaster in 2024 along Easy Street um this is a view towards Broad Street at at the left side the right hand side is the same storm at the corner of Oak and easy street so I think it's just important for us to sort of acknowledge the fact that we have precedents and we have uh existing um conditions that you know people should see um next slide this is a photo of a March storm 2020 um end of storm again meaning you know after things have calmed down a bit in terms of the storm conditions this is um a similar type of storm it's is the view toward along Easy Street towards Old North North Warf showing um flooding that has you know breached um come over the Easy Street um current flood barrier onto the surrounding area next slide so the goal of this project as the other uh downtown uh flood mitigation projects particularly um is to design flood protection for this area um during current and future events um it's it's a a very important um and very lofty goal um however you know there are uh strategies that we are we will be showing you um and we want to get it to a project outcome of a design something that you know the town and stakeholders can can truly consider for a real real project next slide um and this is just showing that you know as I mentioned we're in the stage now of um moving engagement from in sort of internal to the public um just shown here we've met with you folks before um and we are continued to meet with Town departments and czm um I was remiss to not say that czm math czm is the um funding source uh for this project as well as um inine match from the town of nanakit um so czm Representatives have been very um helpful and guiding us through this work um we've also recently met with the land bank um with respect to um you know all alternatives for this area and whether they may have any implications for the Easy Street Park um we're going to be uh holding an open house on August 7th there will be two sessions one it I believe 8 Leah correct me if I'm wrong of these times 8 and to 10 am. and then that same day 6 to8 tell me if that's um so the morning is going to be 8 to 9:30 a 9:30 and then the night will be 5:30 to 7 p.m. excellent thank you so hopefully folks can make it um we will be this will be a joint information session that we will hold with um Partners on the Washington Street project um for flood mitigation that's led by scape um and also there be there will be some information with respect to how these projects tie into the greater uh uh Coastal res ilence planning effort next slide and so this is what we've heard so far from stakeholders they've expressed these concerns um this is guiding the development of our Alternatives um but I'd like to note that I think it was important what we heard earlier from Mark regarding groundwater infiltration concerns aquafer concerns and the need to model these conditions using future uh sea level rise predictions um because that is a that is a factor and we have touched that um slightly thus far with looking at storm water and Overland flow um but I I'll just pause for just one moment and see you know if there's anything unless leam maybe we should do this at the end but you know we certainly want to make sure that we have heard all concerns about you know flood mitigation here for this area we can get get back to this if in terms of timing need be um so I'll just move on to uh we took a deeper dive into existing conditions here you know we wanted to understand the makeup of existing infrastructure um the immediate Shoreline Coastal conditions Coastal processes that occur within the Basin um and of course current and future uh flood risk which is uh again done by the its whole group our partners here um and Associated flooding with uh respect to precipitation and title inundation to the storm drain system so we really did take a deep look into that and how it affects uh infrastructure and next slide so I'm G to stop here and turn this over to Trevor he will go through the flood risk assessment and Alternatives thank you Julie um so yes based on the existing conditions analysis that Julie just walked through arcadis with support from woodo group conducted a flood risk assessment um the real purpose of this flood risk assessment is to uh provide us with data that will tell us what would happen under a no action scenario so uh in a in a scenario where no no investment is made to mitigate the current and long-term flood risk uh in the Easy Street project area um what would the risk to the town B and when we say the town we mean both private residences and businesses as well as public infrastructure such as easy street itself um parks and recreational spaces like the Easy Street Park and then um as a cascading impact the uh access impacts of the access to Steamboat Warf um we did utilize the Massachusetts Coast flood risk model for this analysis uh Julie touched on this a bit but that's been adopted as the kind of best available Coastal flood hazard data for Coastal Massachusetts um it is it is um utilized as part of the regulatory process that project like projects like these may need to go through um and so uh using this data sets us up to be able toess most expeditiously um it won't be a surprise to uh anyone here to learn that our analysis show that there is a significant risk uh to the Easy Street project area uh both from high tide flooding uh today and in the future as well as um Coastal storms both today and the future that risk is posed to both the structures uh uh and activities that happen uh in this area as well as um perhaps the most significant consequence being uh the impacts to access uh and uh egress from Steamboat warp along Easy Street and Broad Street um numerous structures uh we assess that flooding from this area could impact as many as 85 structures in this area through 2070 um and all of the cumulative impacts here which I would say are understating the cumulative risk because it doesn't account for all potential impacts uh but the impacts that we were able to assess a total $1.2 billion dollar worth of risk from today through 2070 that accounts for physical damage to buildings and the contents of those buildings um economic disruptions to businesses and lost uh lost wages um as well as social disruption which includes impacts to Life Safety um the mental health impacts of flooding um and other social considerations I will say as we get into the Alternatives um the Alternatives that we're looking at are not going to be able to mitigate all of this risk so we're talking about improvements to the infrastructure along Easy Street um those uh improvements also need to be complemented by other measures to to kind of fully or more substantially reduce this risk and we'll talk a little bit more about why um it's not just Coastal flood risk that impacts this area there's a also significant concern related to the storm water drainage system um the storm water drainage in this area is complicated um partially because of some unknowns or data gaps related to the uh existing infrastructure um the town is is on that at the moment they're in the process of mapping the existing infrastructure um that would be the first step to sort of wrapping our our heads around you know what is the what is the long-term risk of stone water flooding in this area um and how can it best be mitigated through different kinds of infrastructure improvements um meant to uh you know manage the storm water and the storm water is Flowing from a larger drainage area that extends um Upland into the downtown area um uh sort of related to that there's also significant concerns about water quality so as part of our assessment we'll be looking at not just how to manage storm water from a flood risk perspective but also to ensure that any water storm water that's being discharged into the harbor is treated um in compliance with state State rules and regulations to uh help you know ensure and reduce impacts to water quality in Manet Harbor this is just a map showing the projected extent of uh Overland tidal flooding um so the darkest blue shade here shows projected daily daily high tide mean higher high water um in the 2030s under the high sea level rise projection adopted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts uh the slightly later shade of Brew sh the same title benchmarks of mean higher high water in the 2050s and then the light is of blue here shows the extent of title flooding in the 2070s so as you can see uh by the 2070s we have really widespread impacts so what I want to point out here is just that um the work we do in Easy Street in the Easy Street area will near-term benefits um to mitigate flood risk in this area um but ultimately we need to be extended Beyond just this project area as part of the overall strategy recommended by the CRP to provide comprehensive flood risk mitigation now this map shows not tidal flooding but flooding that may be expected from major Coastal storms um so this is showing the projected extent of the 1% annual chance storm uh today through 2070 1% annual chance storm is a storm that has a 1% chance storm of happening in any given year um also sort of commonly refer to uh clo as the 100-year storm that as noted in the previous presentation that doesn't mean it happens once every hundred years it just means that the probability uh is 1% every every year that probab the probability of this same event as we'll talk about in a moment will increase over uh over time with sea level rise so design considerations there's quite a bit of words on this slide I won't read them all but what I will say is that we've uh begun our Alternatives uh development process with a lot of information that we've gleaned from uh the CRP process uh from other ongoing efforts that have happened as well as early conversations with stakeholders such as the the crack um so we've kind of designed our Alternatives with a lot of information already in mind that helps us create Alternatives that have um you know the greatest impact and the greatest I think alignment with stakeholder considerations um in terms of design flood elevation and I'll just Define that term for a moment the design flood elevation is um the level of protection that's afforded by the infrastructure so one of the challenges that the Easy Street area currently um suffers from is that the bulkheads uh in this area one were not designed to provide flood mitigation benefits primarily there either uh you know life safety keeping people from falling over the edge as well as um as well as stabilizing the shoreline um in in the world of flood ration we would design different structures uh that may look and feel somewhat similar to what's there today but they'd be engineered for the specific purpose of mitigating flood risk um they would also be designed to the same top of wall elevation and so that consistent top of wall elevation ensures that we have comprehensive protection and don't have flanking of flood waters to whatever Elation we're talking about um over time um so I see somebody has a a hand rais do uh Peter would you like to take questions as we move through or just Reserve until we move through the presentation probably Reserve to the end okay sounds good um so we're looking at a couple different design flood elevations uh and we'll walk through these in a moment 6.5 ft navd88 is one of them for reference the current bulkhead that is uh along Easy Street Al directly along the the Waterfront and owned by the town has a top of wall elevation of of 6.5 ft na 88 so if you want a visual reference a physical reference of what that elevation feels like along Easy Street um that is what that elevation would feel like um we've also looked at a series of Alternatives that look at a higher level of protection um that would provide more benefits in terms of risk mitigation but has the consequence of being a larger structure in uh in the downtown area so that's a tradeoff that that we can continue to think about and talk about as we move through this process um other considerations um we uh as we developed our Alternatives um we heard loud and clear the need to maintain vehicular and pedestrian access along Easy Street ideally not just maintain it but improve it um we must maintain excess in Eis to steam boat Warf um and then ultimately we're looking to not just maintain but also improve and enhance the experience of um the of being along Easy Street and uh accessing Steamboat work either either as a pedestrian or or in a vehicle um in terms of feasibility some of our considerations uh we're looking to maintain the existing bulkhead line and what I mean by that is looking to avoid going outboard of the existing bulkhead line uh we uh the reason for that is that going outboard could have inwater impacts uh that uh reduce usces permit permability um or permitting feasibility but also has ecological impact so we'd like to minimize those to the greatest extent possible um the project must tie in uh to High Ground to provide uh protection uh you know through a certain Horizon um within this compartment um property acquisition is something that we're thinking about we want to have Alternatives that both consider the need for property acquisition uh as well as those that do not rely on property acquisition um and then we've already mentioned uh storm water runoff and uh and storm water management and they need to consider that as part of the solution some of the unknowns that we're still kind of working with as as part of our evaluation is the 31 Easy Street parcel this is the parcel at the corner of Easy Street and uh and uh Broad Street uh on the east side um this is a parcel that uh you know we don't know the the future of in terms of acquisition as you'll see it would be certainly useful to the project if uh we were able to uh acquire that parcel as part of the project um and then Steamship Authority um they are undertaking a separate process uh to M uh to mitigate flood risk to Steamboat Warf um our understanding is that project is uh beginning is going to be launched this year um we will need to maintain close coordination and collaboration with that project as we uh move forward um because ideally the uh project for Easy Street is is uh very well integrated and coordinated with what happens when Ste go forth just in terms of levels of protection um I'll walk through this just to orient people on the uh the First Column that says Target DFE those are elevations uh referencing navd88 which is a datam um so that's not above grade that's above a datam uh Point um we have the elevations 4.5 to 8.0 um and then acoss the top row you'll see the level of protection in terms of uh storm protection or tidal flood protection um over time and so uh we have present day 2030 2050 and 2070 um what happens if we look at for example the 8.0 um feet navd88 design flood elevation in the final row uh if we were to implement that today we would be protecting against today's 1% annual chance storm or 100-year storm but to sea level rise um that level of protection that level of Effectiveness reduces over time um as the same event the same level of flooding happens more frequently um so by 2030 that 1% annual chance storm becomes the 5% annual chance storm or the 20-year storm um and then finally by 2070 uh that that storm is a two-year storm or a 50% annual chains so really the long-term effect of our of our project is really focused on highly frequent storms storms that happen um or tidal conditions that happen annually or have a high probability of happening annually that's the long-term benefit and then in the near term we hope to protect against more significant storms or storms with a lower probability of happening we've also uh We've assessed our Alternatives across a range of criteria um these criteria uh are related to a number of different feasibility as well as co- benefit types of um types of Assessments so level of protection ease of implementation permitting requirements cost um adaptability meaning can the project be adapted over time as uh our knowledge of uh climate change and and other uh considerations changes um fundability and then co- benefits um these are really at this point qualitative assessments and meant to inform stakeholder conversations um nothing that we are presenting here is final or intended to provide a recommendation for which alternative is best these are options that we look to improve and refine through conversations with stakeholders like uh like yourselves so now I'll walk through the four Alternatives and I'll do so fairly quickly so we have some time for conversation here um there's four Alternatives this is alternative one this is the only alternative that uh is designed to be 6.5 feet DFE and I would consider this option kind of our base option this is the option that um among those considered um kind of provides the least uh the least uh amount of um disruption um though I will say a project of this magnitude you know is substantial so I don't want to minimize that but as you'll see the other Alternatives provide a much higher kind of magnitude the real um kind of outline of this strategy is that we have a flood wall that's located um along uh Broad Street that extends to a high ground elevation there in the median between Broad Street and what Steamship Authority at least refers to as Truck Alley to the North of Broad Street um as the line of protection that's kind of shown in the yellow here um extends South it crosses Steamboat Warf um to avoid the need for a gate structure at the entrance to Steamboat Warf regrading of the the warf entry um so that you have kind of an up and over that would be accessible by trucks vehicles um but provides passive protection to the 6.5t elevation it then extends Southward along the existing bulk headline um the uh all of these Alternatives do protect Easy Street Park um by locating the infrastructure at the existing bulk headline um the notion there is that easy street park is a you know significant Community Asset and uh provides a lot of uh you know benefits of the downtown area and so protecting that from flooding is a is a good thing to do um and then as the the line of protection extends South it then crosses easy street through another up and over regrading of the roadway um again at a at a grade that is accessible by trucks and vehicles provides passive protection and then ties in back to high ground uh along Old North Mor as I said I'll move through these quickly to paint kind of a highle portrait of the differences between them and then we can go back and discuss anything and I should have mentioned there's two sections that are located on the lower right of each of these uh one section showing the Easy Street uh area and then the other sections showing the Broad Street area um so alternative to the major differences between alternative two and alternative one is that firstly uh We've begun to look at um strategies for the Broad Street uh area that would actually um look to rearrange the right of way there um our understanding is that the uh experience of driving vehicles and walking along Broad Street when a ferry is in is quite chaotic and so we see this project as an opportunity to uh potentially improve that experience by increasing the um pedestrian walkway along Broad Street um now that would require potentially a reduction in either Truck Alley Andor Broad Street and so there's different kinds of scenarios we can look at there but the idea being that um there's a co- benefit that can be realized by um ideally improving that pedestrian experience as part of this project the other major difference between this alternative and alternative one is the Reliance on Gates so this is a alternative that does not include significant regrading of roadways um instead it provides protection uh through gate structures that would be open during dry conditions uh but then would close before flooding events now obviously over time um as we just discussed uh you know with increasing frequency of flooding these Gates may need to be closed very frequently and so that's a significant disadvantage of of this type of alternative um but by the same token you know just a a reduction in the need for for regrading roadways um and now we move into the options that uh for uh propose a more substantial reimagining of some of these areas um here we see an even larger kind of pedestrian right of way um expand along Broad Street um at this scale we may be able to look at some storm water management benefits of being integrated through green infrastructure along Broad Street um again larger pedestrian uh right of away the trade-off there being though we'd have a reduction in uh available space uh for uh Truck Alley and truck parking there as well as parking and um traffic movement along Broad Street um the other major difference with this strategy from the previous two is it assumes acquisition of 31 Easy Street um 31 Easy Street being acquired provides a lot of potential benefits one um you could provide additional pedestrian access from Steamboat Warf to the Easy Street Park as people move to and from the ferry um as well as improved turning turning radius from Easy Street onto Steamboat Warf uh primarily for trucks which have a hard time making that corner under current conditions there's a lot of things that could also happen on 31 31 easz Street parcel the potential for a pump station if necessary um in that location but that's just one option there's lots of different options that could be considered um here uh and then just to note the southern tie in for this alternative is uh again an up and over along Easy Street so easy street itself would be raised and then a tie-in would happen to High Ground um on all North Warf um and adjacent roadways and then the final alternative which hopefully oh seems my screen may have Frozen here but can somebody go off mute and let me know if they're looking at the alternative four yes great okay so alternative four um this is the most substantial uh uh alternative requires the greatest kind of reimagining of this entire kind of area of downtown um you can think of this also as potential a long-term Evol ution of some of the other Alternatives so let's not just think of these as Mutual exclusive options but as adaptable options over time um in this scenario we're looking at what would happen if Steamboat Warf were to be elevated um itself to a higher elevation in this case 8 feet n88 um that provides a lot of opens up a lot of opportunities for the project one would be um kind of a passive uh entrance to and from the warf Itself by ramping up um which negates the need for gates at the entryway um as well as sort of negating the need for kind of that up and over scenario we looked at it into alternative one um again similarly there is an option here for kind of reenvisioning and expanding The Pedestrian R of way along Broad Street um and then as we move South uh across the the project area along the bulk headline existing bulk headline um we would look at providing passive production meaning not no need for deployer or active structures such as Gates um through elevation of the roadway network uh and regrading of that roadway Network um to to reach our design flood elevation passively um and so you can see there the um tiebacks along Dock Street all the way down to straight Warf um as we uh as we Elevate the roadway Network there keeping it dry and above above flood elevations these are just some sections uh in the interest of time I won't walk through these if there are questions um we can certainly provide that certainly provide answers just a kind of typical section showing the level of protection and what that impact would look like generally within the um rate of weight to scale um uh and there's various different options that could be implemented uh in the VAR various Alternatives here's Broad Street so just if you look at the difference between the median widths here in this example between alternative one and alter two you know we're looking at a difference between the existing Med is median is 10t and alternative one we're able to buy an extra 2 feet while still maintaining three uh three lanes on Truck Alley uh if we start to reduce Truck Alley and reduce Broad Street we get more room or gain the potential for more room along Broad Street um all the way out to uh alternative four three and four which really show a significantly expanded pedestrian realm there with the tradeoff being as we've discussed so as Julie mentioned um next steps we are we're going to be meeting with a direct property of Butters in a virtual meeting uh next week um we look forward to continue discuss these Alternatives with with that cohort um and then we're really ramping up to our open house which is scheduled on August 7th as noted morning and evening sessions this will be at the Nuka whing Museum just adjacent to our project area area um will'll be presenting this same information and having conversations with with residents and other stakeholders about um these options the tradeoffs associated with them and then ideally collecting input or collecting input to uh to inform kind of the next phase of design and refinement of these Alternatives so that uh concludes the presentation but happy now to answer questions or take comments um as we uh as we move forward great Trevor thorough as usual thank you so much um go ahead Doug thank you Peter and thank you Trevor that was really interesting and great work um one quick question you'd mentioned that you your modeling had taken into consideration U tidal flooding Coastal storm flooding I am curious is there any reason to be also considering groundwater as a as a Potential Threat in this area thanks good good Peter would you like me to answer that yeah go ahead yeah I mean great question Doug and you know I think Julie and and Bill and if Bill still on the line but Julie and um you know groundwater is a significant Challenge and um you know this type of infrastructure that we're talking about here is really you know intended to manage storm water and Overland flooding from sea level rise coastal flooding and tidal conditions um that's not to Discount the need for planning around ground level ground water level rise it's it's more that it's a larger scale issue that really needs to be thought about at the kind of neighborhood scale and not within a particular area just because the you know the way ground water moves as we heard earlier is is very differently from the way it might move above ground um so I think there is going to need to be a conversation about that you know it's the solutions to address groundwater rise in a location that's as low W as easy street you know are likely to look at things like actually raising Raad substantially and so that is some of the Alternatives we're looking at that actually do raise the right away is starting to move in that direction of getting getting the infrastructure a little bit higher up so it's not as vulnerable to ground groundwater Rise um but I think it's it's a it's a it's a little bit of a larger conversation that we're able to really tackle holistically in this particular um compartment thanks Trevor are there other questions from the committee Rachel go ahead thank you um there's something this is really simplistic but there's something that I still don't totally understand and I wonder how you're thinking this through so when you raise grades uh for roads I can see what we do with the public infrastructure but what I don't really completely understand is how it impacts the private infrastructure on the the backside like those houses that you know immediately line Easy Street and what considerations been giving to that I'm sure there's some I just don't really understand how it works thank you yeah I mean that's part of the reason that we need to speak to a Butters is because there's definitely a need for that conversation between what happens with the public infrastructure and and private infrastructure I mean the most obvious thing that that generally needs to happen as part of a project and this would happen in a later phase of design would be you know how does the how does an elevated Road or sidewalk meet grade of a private residence right and generally you either need steps or some kind of ramp that gets back down to grade um that's you know that's one example of the kind of design consideration or or option that we would be looking at um but yeah there's you know likely to be significant there a significant need for coordination between the private residences that AB but or private residences and businesses that AB but any elevated Road way um and uh and that roadway itself in terms of accessing it but it's it's it's it's not a it's not a a simplistic question it's actually quite a challenge that this this project should we move forward with an alternative that that has an elevated roadway we'll need to confront and design around yeah and just to add a little bit to that tror I mean that is uh definitely a consideration as we progress Down Easy Street there's a section there that's really low just under three na d88 and all the residents are right at grade there and we're really just showing um kind of the minimal slopes required to kind of get a a vehicle up and over to a um kind of a passive type of flood protection system that doesn't require a g a gate if you will um and that will you know just to reinforce we'll need some level of coordination or little retaining walls or some means to separate that high elevation from access to those private residences and those you know um encourage that we will get um feedback on that and have to work through some of those issues okay great you guys uh other other questions from the committee go ahead Tim uh yeah just quickly I think you said this but just to confirm it can these Alternatives be phased in over time um or do you have to sort of pick one from the start I think yeah I I I think there there is a way to phase these you know I right now we're kind of presenting a menu of options and collecting feedback on what people what stakeholders are uh you know responding favorably to uh versus saying you know our no goes or things that they wouldn't like to see among this menu of options uh I do think there is a way to phase the there is a way to phase some of the components of this so an example would be um you could uh design something without knowing exactly what Steamboat War what the Steamship Authority will do to Steamboat WARF in terms of their resilience strategy there um we can phase a project that could integrate whatever happens there uh as part of the longer term solution in the future so acting you know alternative one might be like a near-term level of protection a near-term strategy that that buys us benefits today or in the near future obviously this won't be implemented today but um but then could be integrated into the longer term strategy for steam more if that's implemented in 2035 2040 whatever year I you don't quote me on the year we don't know what what Steamship Authority is going to do quite yet but um but yeah the one thing I would say is it's not really possible to phase the linear protection you need to have to have a comprehensive compartment you can't just like replace the bulkhead along the Easy Street park for example um you need to have kind of a comprehensive line of protection um along the Waterfront in order to uh in order to fully address the risk because it comes from multiple different areas um uh even today thanks Trevor thank you okay other comments questions from the committee bearing in mind that we are at six minutes from the end of the meeting and we may go over a little bit um are we all good with going over to to solve the rest of the the agenda okay Leah go ahead I just want to make another plug that on August 7th you all should come to the open house we'll have breakfast stuff and also some dinner food um for the later evening session so spread the word you'll be seeing some advertisements up through the current in the inky and then hanging um around town as well and what are those times again Leah sorry so the morning session is going to be from 800 a. to 9:30 and it's Dro in so you come and come and go as you please and then the evening is 5:30 to 7 p.m. thank you I would also say I forgot to mention this but a lot of the information that Julie uh and I went through very rapidly is addressed in a significantly more detail in our existing conditions and flood assessment report and our Alternatives report that I believe Leah shared with with the committee um you know those are relatively long documents so You' be excused for not having read them yet but uh but yeah did you know I think some questions could probably be answered if you have them um by reading those documents okay great thanks Trevor um okay if there's nothing else from the committee are there any public comments all right um so we will move on thank you guys for the presentation we'll move on to um number 10 next steps for Coastal resilience updates to local regulations so we've gone through the process of of uh speaking with the chairman and sometimes Vice chairman of the regulatory boards in the town um all with the goal of um integrating Coastal resilience policies into the regulations of these regulatory boards we've been to Lee and I have been to the select board to inform them that this is the direction we're heading and so our next step is to start looking at the regulations of these boards and uh we're going to start with the planning board um and basically I think we should start by basically reading those regulations um it sounds long and boring but I think that the things that are um that will have Coastal re resilience implications um will sort of jump out at us as we read through them and I'm not not in any way saying that you need to do this for the next meeting going to take a a while to do this um if you need help I think what we'll do is we'll provide you the link to those regulations so you can get there and start reading them on your own um and then check in at the next meeting see how you guys are finding it and um that's my proposal what do you guys think go ahead Doug um thanks Peter now that makes sense to me I I feel like there's a a need to get educated first before I have uh before I am so presumptuous as to offer any suggestions um I also think it would be wise for all of us to review the CRP as it relates to um zoning regulations and and uh I don't recall offand how detailed uh the CRP how much detail it went into I know with regards to the wetlands uh regulations there was a fair amount of detail so I'm hoping that there may be similar uh Deep dive available for us to get started with with the CRP and then uh understand it in the context of what the current zoning regulations look like uh but that sounds reasonable to me okay anybody else again this isn't homework for the next meeting so don't don't freak out okay um number 11 public Outreach ideas and strategies and committee members um volunteers for social media what am I doing with this Leah um so the thought is uh so Doug was doing scorecards for quite a few months and thank you so much Doug I know it was a lot of work um he is is busy right now and so I need help with well one if we want to continue trying to do the scorecards I will need help with someone helping me with that um and then as far as social media posting goes at first we got like you know a lot of hits and now we're kind of in a slump so if there's any suggestions that members have any other organizations that they're linked with that would share our information um that would be helpful a of the kind of aligned organizations that we first spoke to I think there were about 10 of them um kind of stopped sharing so we haven't gotten as many Impressions all right um okay well you guys think about that um um Inky update by Tim brain yeah not not a lot to update uh I think we're probably would one of the things we should do while they're kind of getting their act together about how they want to and if they want to do more coverage of the topic um is to think and look for and sort of anticipate news stories that we think will be coming that we could then um get them onto and I guess I mean I'm happy to brainstorm that with somebody if if they're interested and um just sort of looking at what's coming and what would qualify as a new story for them um but I think that would be worth some thinking um and it could be you know new new funding that's coming or it could be you know plans that are being uh um finalized or you know things that they will see as as a as a legitimate news story um because I think that that they will they would like that probably and in addition to whatever kind of broader overview kinds of Articles they might consider so um if uh that's something I think we should think about and as I said I'm happy to um work with someone on trying to come up with a list well it would be great to know that they're getting our agenda um it' be even better if their reporters would just attend our meeting I'm sure they could pull things from it um but we can't we can't just come up with stories for them they're the you know they're the newspaper they should see the stories and then write about it so yeah but we we we do know we do know things that are that are coming our way that um they can be alerted to um so uh anyway um that that's sort of all I got at the moment um I don't think they're going to I think they're too busy this probably get back to this in September but um so if anybody has any thoughts about that let me know um okay so have we Leah have we lost our Quorum y I was just gonna say that okay so what do we do we just end the meeting or do we what do we do yeah I have to end the meeting okay so um we'll get to everything else later um I'll take a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn okay a second from somebody second second from car Beller um roll call vote Doug Rose hi um John kishner hi Tim brain hi Gary Beller hi share votes I sorry everybody thanks for sticking around I appreciate it um we may have to make these meetings longer just kidding