CT has updated its stormwater manual with stricter regulations for how municipalities and some large institutions handle stormwater.
sea level rise
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Mortgage lenders face increasing risks from sea-level rise
As flooding grows more frequent, some smaller banks are shunning 30-year mortgages.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT’s small solutions to climate change: saving the Hepburn dune with a living shoreline
Katherine Hepburn’s dune has taken a severe beating, but a living shoreline would protect it and the surrounding area.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT’s small solutions to climate change: Making Bridgeport more resilient
After the south end of Bridgeport was walloped by Irene and Sandy, city officials decided to do something about it.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT’s small solutions to climate change: creating salt marsh in Stonington
When a coastal meadow preserve was swamped during Superstorm Sandy, the land conservancy decided to let nature take over. And it worked.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT’s small solutions to climate change: new tool shows effects of sea level rise
Forewarned is forearmed. New viewer developed by the state has some important news about the future effects of sea level rise.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Climate change versus Tweed Airport
Tweed Airport in New Haven is built on salt marsh and has flooded for years, but that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from considering a bill to expand and lengthen its runways.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Connecticut’s vanishing shoreline: Towns trying to beat the odds
Shoreline resiliency against sea level rise and flooding in Connecticut is largely in the hands of local governments. But with money tight and local budgets reliant on the taxes shoreline properties generate, efforts to protect coastal communities from climate change have been slow and underfunded. Some communities, however, are making more progress than others.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Connecticut’s vanishing shoreline: One storm away from disaster
Connecticut is fortunate it hasn’t been hit by a tropical-style storm since the successive storms of Irene and Sandy in 2011 and 2012 swamped the coastline, illuminating its vulnerabilities to the effects of climate change. That’s because there’s a general consensus that if either of those storms were to hit now, they would be just as damaging.
Posted inCities & Towns, Energy & Environment, Housing, News
Sandy + 5; Irene + 6: Coastal resilience still elusive and expensive
More than six years after Irene, five years after Sandy, and tens of millions of dollars later, Connecticut’s shoreline communities have been slow to embrace resiliency and now look much as they did before the storms hit. But there are exceptions.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT’s repeat flood damage dilemma: move out or rebuild?
Thousands of Connecticut homes have been repeatedly damaged by flooding due to storms. costing the government millions in insurance claims. The losses are now causing some to question the wisdom of policies that encourage rebuilding. They say that with climate change, those properties will grow more vulnerable and money would be better spent moving people out. So far, however, few homeowners are interested.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Flood insurance hikes arriving at a waterfront near you
Just over a year after shoreline politicians along with a panicked real estate industry and homeowners fought successfully to roll back scheduled dramatic increases in National Flood Insurance Program rates, most of them are back in only slightly modified form. As policies renew, shoreline homeowners are likely to face a new round of sticker shock, their penalty for living in flood zones.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
A decade brings dramatic change to Connecticut wildlife
As Connecticut undertakes the 10-year update to its Wildlife Action Plan, it faces challenges not even imagined a decade ago — most notably, the dramatic effects of climate change.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Climate change and us: What you need to know
The Northeast is already suffering pronounced effects from climate change according the National Climate Assessment. And it faces daunting challenges to keep those effects from getting worse.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
New analysis pinpoints change on Connecticut’s Long Island shoreline
Data from Connecticut’s shoreline from as far back as 1880 shows for the first time how, where, how much and how fast the shoreline has changed — mostly receding — in the last 130 years.