Seattle calculating, preparing for climate change

Insurance Journal: Seattle officials predict that parts of Washington’s largest city will be under water as the shoreline creeps higher due to global climate change. City agencies are calculating the local effects of climate change and how to respond and adapt to protect people and infrastructure, The Seattle Times reported.

Agencies were preparing for more intense heat, protecting the new downtown sea wall under construction and calculating the number of pump stations and outfalls that would be under water, as they anticipate sea-level rise caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by humans.

Calculations by the Washington Climate Impacts Group and the Washington Department of Ecology published in 2008 predict a sea-level rise in Seattle of six inches by 2050. Less-likely scenarios are sea-level rises of three inches on the low end and 22 inches on the high end, the Times reported.

A green ribbon commission has come up with recommendations to respond to climate changes. “We did this map to understand impacts on our infrastructure,” Paul Fleming, manager of climate and sustainability for Seattle Public Utilities, told the Times. “In the big picture, this isn’t just about sea-level rise. It’s about drinking water, urban flooding, and how we design new projects.”

Seattle’s water supply is in the central Cascade Mountains, so it won’t be infiltrated by seawater creeping toward groundwater. But as the sea creeps upward, water supply, drainage and wastewater infrastructure possibly could be affected by everything from flooding to corrosion.

Other effects of climate change, including drought and wildfires, also could diminish the water-supply quality and quantity in the far future....

Seattle's skyline at dusk, shot by Cacophony, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

A flood of stricter stormwater rules in Seattle

Michael A. Nesteroff and Andrew F. Rigel in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce: As we enter the fall rainy season (which is not to be confused with the summer rainy season), most business owners in this region probably have a lot of other things on their minds than how much it might be raining. But once the precipitation lands on an industrial facility or construction site, it becomes stormwater that must be handled properly under regulations issued by the Washington Department of Ecology.

This year, we have seen implementation of even tougher new requirements for industrial facilities and now Ecology is tightening the stormwater requirements for construction sites. Consequently, many businesses are likely to find themselves out of compliance and subject to potential legal action, particularly as local public-interest environmental groups pay close attention to the reports filed by these facilities.

Since the beginning of this year, more than 1,200 industrial facilities that discharge stormwater have had to comply with new permit requirements. Some of these covered facilities are not aware of the new industrial stormwater permit, they may not have updated their stormwater pollution prevention plan, or they are having difficulty meeting the new permit's more stringent requirements….

A storm drain, shot by Menetekel, Wikimedia Commons