A discussion of Funding policy on the Capitol Beach
Part 3 of a new 5 Part Series
"As beaches and inlets face greater physical changes in the coming century than in all of human history, coastal states and communities need dedicated and predictable funding for projects and effective management, guided by data-driven prioritization that considers future coastal conditions.” The third of a five part series reviewing coastal policies essential for improving beach and inlet management, taken from American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) and Coastal States Organization’s (CSO) new “Joint Policy.” Derek Brockbank is joined by Rachel Keylon, CSO Federal Affairs Director, and Tony Pratt, ASBPA President. Be sure to listen to the other episodes on Sediment Management, Permitting, Shoreline Development, and Research for a comprehensive review of what Congress and the Administration need to do to improve resilience for coastal beaches and inlets.
Derek Brockbank 0:00
Welcome to the capital beach. My name is Derek Brockbank. I'm your host for the capitol beach, the podcast where we talk about coastal policy. I'm very excited to be doing a segment three of a five part segment with President of ASBPA Tony Pratt and the federal Affairs Director of coastal states organization, Rachel Keylon. We're talking about the joint ASBPA-CSO policy on beach and inlet management. I'm really excited to be doing this series at this time because this is my my past and present. I spent six years as executive director of American shore and beach preservation Association and I just started at coastal states organization. So worked on this from from both sides and really excited to be talking today about funding, probably one of the most central and fundamental elements of any coastal work you need funding. To this this policy. We'll talk about what kind of funding is needed and how it can be better tailored to improve coastal projects. But first a word from our sponsors.
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The American Shoreline Podcast Network and coastalnewstoday.com are brought to you by LJA engineering with 28 offices along the Gulf Coast. The folks at LJA engineering are at the top of the craft in the areas of coastal restoration, coastal infrastructure, rivers and channels, numerical modeling, disaster recovery, and design and construction oversight. Be sure to check out their brand new coastal resilience department headed up by ASPN's own Peter Ravella, find them@lja.com. Be sure to subscribe to the coastal news today daily blast newsletter at coastalnewstoday.com for daily updates on the events and news that shape the coastal discussion. Want to support the discussion and promote your company? We have sponsorship packages available now. Email me to learn more at Chloe at coastalnewstoday.com. That's c-h-l-o-e, at coastalnewstoday.com. Hope to hear from you and enjoy the show.
Derek Brockbank 1:47
Okay, great. Well, funding is you know what I've led off these segments by talking about, you know, what challenge we're trying to overcome funding is not a difficult one to explain projects take money, and that money is needs to come from multiple sources, we talked about federal funding, obviously, federal funding is matched in most cases by state level funding, or local funding, if you will, some some local cost share. But if we're going to manage our coasts into the future, it's going to it's going to be an expensive endeavor. One thing I think we do in this, in this policy we talked about is really having that predictable level of funding. And so this is not just providing funding, but it's actually providing funding before disasters, providing a regular and reliable source of funding. That's not to say that we shouldn't be funding coastal projects after a hurricane hits or after you see a major major erosion issue. But that is certainly not the only way we should be funding them. And it's really frankly, not the best way that we should be funding them, we need to be doing funding ahead of time so that we are prepared for storms and not just reacting to them. So that sort of flows throughout, we have a number of bullets in here. And if you're interested in getting into the details, definitely check out as BPA or CSOs website to see the full policy. But we're gonna talk about some of the things some of the policies on here that are perhaps a little less obvious, right, sort of requiring, asking for more funding is something that, you know, we always do, it makes sense. But I want to talk about some specific things about how that funding comes that I think are a little less a little less obvious. So I'll start off with Rachel. And one of our policies is developing better cost share standard that reduces barriers for economically challenged and or otherwise disadvantaged communities. Can you talk about what this what this means and why we think it's important?
Rachel Keylon 3:35
Yeah, great. Thanks, Derek. So the current cost share for most coastal projects in is that the Army Corps covers 100% of the first $100,000 for feasibility studies. And then there's a 5050 share after that. And then for implementation of projects, the Federal share is 65%. And the non federal share is 35% with a federal project limit of 10 million. So for many economically challenged or disadvantaged communities, these cost share amounts are out of reach. At the same time, these communities may be some of the most impacted by significant coastal hazard threats. And so CSO and ASB pa believe that it is necessary to allow for adjustments in the cost share standard to enable an economically challenged and other disadvantaged communities to access these federal resources for beach in inlet management projects. We really applaud the Congress for taking meaningful steps in the in this in this direction in the 2020 Water Resources Development Act by defining economically disadvantaged communities, prioritizing resilience planning assistance for these communities, and establishing a pilot program for 10. Coastal projects including projects that can address flood control beneficial use erosion, Storm Damage, protection, etc. In economically disadvantaged communities, and under this pilot project program, the Federal share would be 100%. And that is great. However, we believe that a more permanent adjustment is necessary to enable these disadvantaged communities to access funding for these coastal projects, which is necessary to ensure that these communities are really effectively managing their coasts and able to respond to the rising number of coastal hazards that are happening in these communities.
Derek Brockbank 5:36
Thanks and thanks for sharing the the recent update in word 2020. We talked about this a little bit in my recent podcast with Ryan Seeger, with the Transportation and Infrastructure committee on on word, and I think it's an important provision. Obviously, a pilot project is important, but doesn't sort of fundamentally address the challenge. Um, Tony, I wanted to turn to you, you spent years as the shoreline and waterways administrator for the state of Delaware, Delaware has federal projects on its ocean front beaches, those beaches, you know, maybe they're not the richest places in the world, but those those towns can afford the cost share that that's the local cost share to match the federal requirement. But you also manage the Delaware Bay side, which I might take my understanding is probably doesn't quite have that same level of wealth as as the oceanfront, you want to talk a bit about sort of the challenges for local communities in in how they can fund provide cost share for federal for federal projects.
Tony Pratt 6:39
Sure. The and it's very, it's going to be very Delaware specific. I think that that is my experience. But you're right, Derek, part of part of the issue from the Delaware perspective, and it goes back decades and decades ago. We do have notable coastal communities on our ocean coast. Rehoboth Beach, Bethany beach, come to mind almost immediately. And there is there is the ability locally to cost share, the state of Delaware chose and for reasons that escaped me, and philosophies imposed probably long before I even started working for Dennerick, which seems like an impossible long time ago. But it was based on one notable storm, the 1962 northeaster, which started the work of the Corps of Engineers proposing a very comprehensive Dune and beach system for ocean coast. At that time, the communities probably did not have the wherewithal even on the ocean coast to cost share the kinds of costs of the Corps of Engineers wanted to take on so it was dedicated to be the non federal partner to be the state of Delaware and has been that way ever since and has not been looked back on again, I think my colleagues in Maryland and in New Jersey have solved it with a little bit more local participation, it is a challenge to meet some of the benefit cost analyses on the Delaware Bay coast. And those communities have up until very recently, been discounted as not meeting meeting the federal standard on the benefits of a project outweighing the costs of the of the project. So it would fall on locals to take care of their own problems. As far as as far as erosion and storm vulnerability. That said, I think that the the thing that has been revealed to me over the years is that there's a tendency to wait to mitigate, mitigate after the storm, we wait for the suffering to occur, we wait for the loss of jobs to occur, we wait for the buildings and the infrastructure to be destroyed. And then there's an outpouring of attention and money that comes forward. The ratio that has been discussed very publicly many, many times that the $1 of mitigation expenditures put in place saves $7 in eventual response and recovery dollars. The reason we don't get to that is that politicians and I hate to say this in a very broad sense. But politicians shine when they can go in and recover from a disaster, they can pour money into earthquake areas and tornado areas and fire areas. And there's not a lot of appetite for the mitigation dollars up front. Part of the reason for that is that we don't do a good job after the event, determining how much was saved when the project a beach and Dune Enhancement System was in place. So I think we have to get our economics a little bit better than they had been and talk about after every single storm, how much was saved in the lack of the need to suffer and then respond to that. And that could help turn the corner a little bit. But it is still a challenge for local communities with no tax base and a little income coming in to to meet the challenges. So it goes to the county level, it goes to the state level and then it goes to the federal level till seek help in paying for these mitigation projects.
Derek Brockbank 9:54
Yeah, thanks, Tony. A good reminder about the need to prepare rather than respond to a storm and I think this This specific policy really gets to the fundamental criticism of beach nourishment that we hear so often, which is, the federal government is just paying to put sand in front of rich people's homes. But the way the system is set up was, the federal government is paying to put sand in places where there will be the most, you know, most protection for the for the buck, if you will, right. So you're, you're paying to protect areas that have a lot of wealth behind them. Because, you know, if you're going to pay a million dollars or $10 million, you want to protect assets that are well exceeding that. But what that means is you're leaving the places that aren't, you know, particularly wealthy, you're leaving those unprotected, because it just doesn't meet that benefit cost ratio to put to put a coastal project or a flood protection project in front of them. And so we need to sort of, we encourage the Corps, and actually, this is going to be a congressional need, I think, to get to sort of fundamentally rethink that, how do we actually help protect communities that are unable to provide that protection for themselves as opposed to simply providing coastal protection from the communities that are that are well wealthy, so a challenge and something that needs to be addressed. And
Tony Pratt 11:11
just just to add to that, we talked about the physical structure a lot about the damages, the economic valuation processes that have gone on and Jim Houston from aspp, has done a lot of work on the economy of coastal communities and the economy, which is a favorable trade benefit to the federal tax dollar, because of the money that's brought in through tourism. And the jobs that it's created, we've looked holistically in Delaware at not just the infrastructure at risk, but also the number of jobs in the service industry that are, are basically 100%, based on a quality beach experience. And that is a major part of the national economics to is looking at how much service industry is providing through hotels and restaurants, jobs, and cash flow and taxation. And I think we could look at COVID and the impacts of COVID on hotels and restaurants nationally, and come up with a similar scenario. So you know, it's broader than just infrastructure.
Derek Brockbank 12:12
Yeah. And it's, to me, sometimes this gets almost to the fundamental challenge of the federal government, is the role to help support best support those who are, you know, unable to help themselves? Or is it to really help drive an economic structure that that will create more wealth. And I think it needs to do a bit of both, so excuse me. Okay, let's pivot to the next. The next bullet on here that we want to talk about, there's a number of bullets within our beach, and in that policy, talking about sort of publicly prioritizing projects, talking about how to more efficiently fund projects to, you know, make sure that things are publicly listed so that communities can can see what is going to be funded. You know, all of those seem pretty straightforward. But I wanted to talk about this last one that we included, which is authorizing and funding Army Corps to plan and develop coastal adaptation projects, for long term sea level rise, so 50 to 200 years sea level rise. And the challenge here really is most core shore projects are 50 year projects. So they've done the cost benefit. They've done the analysis, they've done the feasibility, to say that these are going to be worthwhile projects for the next 50 years. But as we all know that, you know, 75 years from now, the shoreline is gonna look very, very different than what it does now. And so, you know, if we're, if we're maintaining a coastline for the next 50 years, is there going to be a sudden drop off? Is there going to be a sudden change? You know, are you going to go from having a regular, you know, beach nourishment cycle, all of a sudden not having any beach nourishment, because it's no longer affordable. So what we're really pushing here is trying to get the Corps to assess the long term sustainability of some of these 50 year projects, and start to think about how they can plan for a coastline that is more than 50 years away. And I know that seems challenging, but you look at you know, some of the major American cities on the Atlantic coast. And they've been here for two, three, you know, cases of New York and Boston 400 years. And so we need to be thinking sort of begin to be thinking on those long term scales. Rachel, is there anything you wanted to sort of jump in or add to this or anything you'd like to pull out on this one?
Rachel Keylon 14:22
Yeah. So I think that this policy really recognizes that we need to be looking forward at investing in managing our coasts for the future for future generation. So we have just big changes facing our coasts that include coastal storms, flooding, erosion, other coastal hazards, and we really just need to be thinking in a long term perspective at how we want to address these to make sure that we have coasts for the future.
Derek Brockbank 14:48
And I think this also builds on some of the work that has been done in the past few years. So one of the points we talked about, is using long term inundation productions and a nationwide inventory of sediment and needs and availability to prioritize projects. And so one of the things we talked about on a previous segment here was the fact that Boehm and the Army Corps and the states has begun do really, really good work in assessing where offshore sediment supply is. So you know, where maybe 15 or even 20 years ago, there just wasn't a great understanding of how much sediment was available to coastline for restoration, we are starting to understand that and now now that we do understand that, it might make sense to start thinking about, okay, you know, we might have a sediment supply available for 50 years, but there's just not that sediment available past that point. And so maybe we should be thinking about, you know, where we need to prioritize restoration and where, you know, it might make sense to, to not prioritize restoration and start thinking about other ways of protection, whether that's, you know, whether that's the dreaded R word of retreat or, or even thinking about, you know, just sort of realigning the coast in certain places. And we'll get to this a bit more in the next section. But, Tony, you've been, I mean, not not to date you, but you've been doing coastal restoration and protection for, you know, 4040 years almost. And so you must have seen a lot of change in how how coastal management is done. Any thoughts, you want to think about of how this, how the Corps or other federal agencies might be able to start planning and funding work? That would exceed a sort of 50 year lifespan?
Tony Pratt 16:27
Yeah. So that, you know, this from experience, the the the, we have a very difficult time at pretty much all levels of government in in realistic preparation, more than just planning, but preparation for things on a decadal timeframe. But politicians are elected often for one to four, six year terms, they sometimes continue to get elected and elected elected. So it adds up. But the horizon for budgeting and expenditures and expectations of deliverables is often on very short timescales. If somebody's elected, can get money for Florida for a district and they can do it within this term, then helps them get reelected the next time. That's, that's, that's, that's the model that exists. And so when we depart from that and try to look decades out, it becomes more difficult. I look at two things very notably, number one, the urban areas you talked about Derek, East Coast oriented, I'm looking at New York and Boston, Boston has just done a very comprehensive vulnerability study. It's scary when you look at projected sea level rises in the Boston area, the Boston Harbor area, and how much is expected to be flooded in a very short time horizon into the future? And what can you possibly do with that? On the barrier island area, which is the Delaware coast, we've done a pretty good job, I think of keeping up with sea level rise as far as the beach and Dune system. Now prior to development occurring, and this is my old geology has it's my foundation and medical education way back in Massachusetts 100 years ago, was in coastal geomorphology. And barrier islands migrate under time, landward and upward, and they tend to build vertically as well as horizontally retreating to the inland a little bit. We are freezing the the position of beaches in place, with an expectation that we can keep stacking that higher, our barrier islands will drown from the base side, the Back Bay side, every storm that deposits material sand in the interior of the barrier beach system is raising the elevation of that island as it has done naturally for 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of years, we now decided to re occupy the road elevation, the entrance to the garage, the entrance to the house at whatever it was in the 1940s when it was originally constructed. We are putting our setting ourselves up for tremendous vulnerability from the estuary side or the Back Bay side of most of our barrier islands. These are really huge challenges. We're going to keep a beach in place, but there'll be nothing behind the beach and Dune system because it's flooded on sunny days all over the place. We're seeing it in Miami, we're seeing it in New York, New Jersey, we're seeing it up and down the coast. So these are huge challenges. We're getting ahead of it and looking much more out into the future God does give us some identity as to where we should be removing structures and relocating to safer grounds. And that's the harsh reality I think is what's ahead of us.
Derek Brockbank 19:28
And with that we're sort of teeing up our next section on developer sorry on development and where we should be in shouldn't be building which we will get to on our next podcast. But I did want to thank Tony and Rachel for joining me if this piqued your curiosity again, please do check out the joint inlet beach and inlet policy from ASPCA and coastal states organization on either organization's website. And thanks for listening. Do do join us again for development and coastal science and research or go back can check out our our segments on sediment management and, and permitting. So thanks very much for joining me today guys
The American Shoreline Podcast Network and coastalnewstoday.com are brought to you by LJA engineering with 28 offices along the Gulf Coast. The folks at LJA engineering are at the top of the craft in the areas of coastal restoration, coastal infrastructure, rivers and channels, numerical modeling, disaster recovery, and design and construction oversight. Be sure to check out their brand new coastal resilience department headed up by ASPN's own Peter Ravella, find them@lja.com. Be sure to subscribe to the coastal news today daily blast newsletter at coastalnewstoday.com for daily updates on the events and news that shape the coastal discussion. Want to support the discussion and promote your company? We have sponsorship packages available now. Email me to learn more at Chloe at coastalnewstoday.com. That's c-h-l-o-e, at coastalnewstoday.com. Hope to hear from you and enjoy the show.
The American Shoreline Podcast Network and coastalnewstoday.com are brought to you by LJA engineering with 28 offices along the Gulf Coast. The folks at LJA engineering are at the top of the craft in the areas of coastal restoration, coastal infrastructure, rivers and channels, numerical modeling, disaster recovery, and design and construction oversight. Be sure to check out their brand new coastal resilience department headed up by ASPN's own Peter Ravella, find them@lja.com. Be sure to subscribe to the coastal news today daily blast newsletter at coastalnewstoday.com for daily updates on the events and news that shape the coastal discussion. Want to support the discussion and promote your company? We have sponsorship packages available now. Email me to learn more at Chloe at coastalnewstoday.com. That's c-h-l-o-e, at coastalnewstoday.com. Hope to hear from you and enjoy the show.
The American Shoreline Podcast Network and coastalnewstoday.com are brought to you by LJA engineering with 28 offices along the Gulf Coast. The folks at LJA engineering are at the top of the craft in the areas of coastal restoration, coastal infrastructure, rivers and channels, numerical modeling, disaster recovery, and design and construction oversight. Be sure to check out their brand new coastal resilience department headed up by ASPN's own Peter Ravella, find them@lja.com. Be sure to subscribe to the coastal news today daily blast newsletter at coastalnewstoday.com for daily updates on the events and news that shape the coastal discussion. Want to support the discussion and promote your company? We have sponsorship packages available now. Email me to learn more at Chloe at coastalnewstoday.com. That's c-h-l-o-e, at coastalnewstoday.com. Hope to hear from you and enjoy the show.
The American Shoreline Podcast Network and coastalnewstoday.com are brought to you by LJA engineering with 28 offices along the Gulf Coast. The folks at LJA engineering are at the top of the craft in the areas of coastal restoration, coastal infrastructure, rivers and channels, numerical modeling, disaster recovery, and design and construction oversight. Be sure to check out their brand new coastal resilience department headed up by ASPN's own Peter Ravella, find them@lja.com. Be sure to subscribe to the coastal news today daily blast newsletter at coastalnewstoday.com for daily updates on the events and news that shape the coastal discussion. Want to support the discussion and promote your company? We have sponsorship packages available now. Email me to learn more at Chloe at coastalnewstoday.com. That's c-h-l-o-e, at coastalnewstoday.com. Hope to hear from you and enjoy the show.
The American Shoreline Podcast Network and coastalnewstoday.com are brought to you by LJA engineering with 28 offices along the Gulf Coast. The folks at LJA engineering are at the top of the craft in the areas of coastal restoration, coastal infrastructure, rivers and channels, numerical modeling, disaster recovery, and design and construction oversight. Be sure to check out their brand new coastal resilience department headed up by ASPN's own Peter Ravella, find them@lja.com. Be sure to subscribe to the coastal news today daily blast newsletter at coastalnewstoday.com for daily updates on the events and news that shape the coastal discussion. Want to support the discussion and promote your company? We have sponsorship packages available now. Email me to learn more at Chloe at coastalnewstoday.com. That's c-h-l-o-e, at coastalnewstoday.com. Hope to hear from you and enjoy the show.
Derek Brockbank is Executive Director of Coastal States Organization (CSO), which represents the nation’s Coastal States, Territories, and Commonwealths on ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes issues. With two decades of experience in Washington DC on coastal adaptation policy and organizational development, Derek is connecting state coastal management programs with federal agencies and resources in order to address the greatest coastal challenges facing society. He previously served as executive director for the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) where he led the strategic planning and outreach, government affairs, and development goals of the nation’s leading organization advocating for beach and coastal restoration. Prior to starting with ASBPA, Derek worked as campaign director for a coalition effort to restore the Mississippi River Delta and Coastal Louisiana, and was part of a gulf-wide campaign to pass the RESTORE Act, securing billions of dollars for Gulf Coast restoration. This followed up on his work with National Wildlife Federation on climate adaption. Derek grew up in New York City and got his coastal education from an early age playing on the beaches of Long Island, and kayaking and fishing in Peconic Bay.
