Climate change—right here at home
Dr. Jayantha Obeysekera spends his workdays finding out how to keep South Florida from having too much water in the wrong place.
For roughly the last six years, Obeysekera (“Dr. Obey” to co-workers) has been the South Florida Water Management District’s point person on climate change and sea level rise. Mainly, that means helping cities keep saltwater from penetrating underground drinking water supplies and assisting local governments in protecting key services from flooding.
Like Florida Atlantic University civil engineering professor Frederick Bloetscher, whom I quoted previously on this subject, Obeysekera believes that Boca Raton, Delray Beach in particular and Palm Beach County in general, face less of an immediate threat than Broward and Miami-Dade counties. The land, Obeysekera says, is between 5 feet and 6 feet higher. Also, the main aquifers—underground reservoirs—are less porous in this area than they are farther south. That feature makes it harder for saltwater, which is pushing farther inland as seas rise, to penetrate drinking water well fields. Salt water is slightly heavier than fresh water.
But also like Bloetscher, Obeysekera warns against complacency. “We have to think how we will adapt over the next two or three decades,” he said. “Even a rise of just 6 inches can make a big difference.”
As Congress remains frozen on this issue, however, Obeysekera points to the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, which includes Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. In October 2012, the group produced a report setting out goals for everything from reducing the emission of greenhouse gases that cause global warming to easing the effects of higher sea levels caused by that warming. The counties also produced a 42-page plan for meeting those goals by 2017. The documents aren’t exactly page-turners, filled as they are with references to “stakeholders,” but they offer hope of avoid the worst-case scenarios from, say, storm surges during hurricanes.
Indeed, Boca Raton in particular and Florida in general have more interest and more potential involvement in finding solutions to the effects of climate change than most parts of the country.
One small solution is for cities to add what planners call “transit-oriented development,” which means clustering homes near rail lines, to reduce commuting and thus emissions from cars. Boca Raton made this a goal years ago, and other coastal cities hope that Tri-Rail one day can move its trains to the Florida East Coast Railway tracks that run through most downtowns.
A large solution is for power companies to use cleaner fuel. Every analysis concludes that coal-fired power plants—the main energy source in China and some larger developing nations—emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases. Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest utility with roughly 4.6 million customers, generates only about 5 percent of its electricity from coal. Very soon, almost 70 percent will come from natural gas, which also is a fossil fuel but emits roughly half the amount of carbon dioxide compared to coal.
Few aspects of climate change policy, though, are easy. FPL is pushing ahead with plans for two new nuclear plants south of Miami. The company, which hasn’t made a final decision, touts the fact that nuclear power emits no greenhouses gases. True, but the plants would be very expensive—perhaps $20 billion—and would create more nuclear waste, for which Congress still has not developed a national storage plan.
Locally, the focus will remain on water. Obeysekera praises Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties for their efforts on water conservation. Boca Raton was an early advocate of using treated wastewater for irrigation, even as people worried aloud that they could get sick from sprinklers at Mizner Park. Bloetscher says that for Boca, Delray and other coastal cities another issue will be “access”—to roads and sewer systems during floods.
“Dr. Obey” does not minimize the challenge, but he also is not a pessimist. With enough effort in the right 