Fast-rising sea slowly erasing coastal Virginia communities

Most of Hog Island has eroded into the Atlantic
Ocean. (Photo map by The Washington Post)

In 1892, the town of Broadwater, on Virginia's Hog Island, was a bustling community with hunting and fishing clubs, families and plenty of oysters. By the early 1900s, the effects of erosion could be seen along the coastline of the southern Delmarva Peninsula, and now "The remains of Broadwater have been lost to the Atlantic Ocean," and the town residents moved to is being threatened by rising sea level, report Chris Mooney, Zoeann Murphy and Simon Ducroquet of The Washington Post.

Buddy Bell, born on Hog Island, told the writers, "I was the next-to-last kid born on there. At one time the island was two miles wide, and now you can throw a shell across it." His family, like many on the island, barged their homes to Oyster, Va., and started over.

Now Oyster is "threatened by a fast-rising ocean, as is much of the U.S. East Coast," they write. "The menace today is different: human-caused climate change. But for some in Oyster, the question of the past echoes today: stay or go?"

Global warming is expanding the ocean, and it's impossible to know how high it will rise. Tide gauges have measured sea levels since 1927, and readings in places like nearby Hampton Roads have been grim. The Post reports, "Seas there rose by more than six millimeters annually over the past 30 years, compared with four millimeters per year during the three decades before."

Post map shows hotspot is sea-level rise.

Barrier islands change for many reasons, but Virginia's are changing at an accelerated rate. "Just 250 miles off Virginia, one of the world’s most dramatic sea-level-rise hot spots has emerged, revealed by satellite measurements that began three decades ago," the Post reports. "Signaling a shift in the Gulf Stream, a massive current that carries heat northward, it’s the most visible sign of a rapidly changing ocean." Kris Karnauskas, a sea-level-rise expert at the University of Colorado, told the writers, “That hot spot just happens to be the loudest symptom of something large-scale and grand going on."

"Oyster now sits near this emerging sea-level-rise hot spot," the reporters write, "and so does part of the legacy of life on Hog Island." The Virginia Coast Reserve Program for the Nature Conservancy, which owns much of the land around Oyster, is hoping to help the community develop a global warming relocation plan.

Maine island will get solar-driven microgrid to ensure power

Ensio map; click to enlarge it.

The residents of Isle au Haut, off the Maine coast, are used to being creative in meeting daily needs when going to the mainland seven miles away can be a chore. The 2-by-6-mile island, population 73, gets electricity via an underwater cable, but the cable is old and could fail anytime, Stephanie Bouchard reports for Ensia, a nonprofit news outlet focusing on climate change and the environment.

"If the cable fails, the island can run its backup diesel generator, but that would triple the cost of electricity for residents, says Jim Wilson, the president of Isle au Haut Electric Power Co. ," Bouchard reports. "Five years ago, knowing the islanders were living on borrowed time, the electricity company board began researching options. Among them: creating a microgrid for the island . . . independent from the mainland power utility company."

They studied how to generate power, and installing a solar grid turned out to be much cheaper than any other option, including replacing the underwater cable. "With the support of islanders, the power company is getting ready to install a renewable microgrid energy system this summer, which includes a 300-kilowatt solar array of 900 panels," Bouchard reports.

The islanders have run into some challenges, including energy storage and paying for the initial costs; other communities seeking to convert to renewable energy could face some of the same issues. Click here to read more about those challenges and how the community aims to meet them.

A story for Independence Day: Maine island creates its own government

"Most of the nation marks 231 years of independence today with parades, picnics and fireworks. But the people of Chebeague Island, Maine, are celebrating just three days of self-government," after being governed from the mainland for 260 years, reports National Public Radio, introducing a story by Howard Berkes.

The move to create a new town, accomplished by passage of a bill in the state legislature, came in response to the possibility that the island's school would be closed. Berkes reports on the first town meeting (shown in photo by David Tyler): "Every folding chair was filled in the island gym and it was standing room only on the fringes. Registered voters held fluorescent green cards, ready to raise them high when it came time to vote. They had 110 items on the agenda, including the school and town budgets, establishing town jobs, and managing waste, traffic, boating, shellfish, elections, animals, cemeteries and more. It took four hours. But half the island’s voters had already spent months on developing this framework of government." Click here to read and listen. (Great sounds!)

Mabel Doughty, 85, told Berkes: "Before that, we felt that those people on the mainland, that somehow they owned the island. We’re going to be our own people. And it’s a little bit feeling what the people who did the Declaration of Independence. They fought so hard to get there. Just as we have. And I think from now on let’s say, the Fourth of July is going to have great meaning for those of us on the island."