Dutch Solutions on the American Shoreline with Kiah Collier

October 4, 2020

We talk with Kiah about her tremendous story in the Tribune.

On this episode, Peter and Tyler sit down with Texas Tribune reporter Kiah Collier on the heals of the release of her deep dive on influence of Dutch coastal management techniques and philosophy on the Texas Coastal Protects plan. Her reporting for Can the “masters of the flood” help Texas protect its coast from hurricanes? took Kiah, along with a delegation of students and U.S. coastal leaders, to the Netherlands to see with their own eyes the Dutch approach. What lessons can be applied to the management of the American shoreline? We discuss in this special episode.

Show Transcription
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Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham

Peter and Tyler joined forces in 2015 and from the first meeting began discussing a project that would become Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network. At the time, Peter and Tyler were coastal consultants for Pete’s firm, PAR Consulting, LLC. In that role, they worked with coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, engaged in grant writing, coastal project development, shoreline erosion and land use planning, permitting, and financial planning for communities undertaking big beach restoration projects. Between and among their consulting tasks, they kept talking and kept building the idea of CNT & ASPN. In almost every arena they worked, public engagement played a central role. They spent thousands of hours talking with coastal stakeholders, like business owners, hotel operators, condo managers, watermen, property owners, enviros, surfers, and fishermen. They dived deep into the value, meaning, and responsibility for the American shoreline, segment-by-segment. Common threads emerged, themes were revealed, differences uncovered. There was a big conversation going on along the American shoreline! But, no place to have it. That's where CNT and ASPN were born.