On Saturday, a group of climate activists plan to don their waders and gather at Boston’s Long Wharf to receive a “wicked high king tide” — more than 12 feet — that’s expected to pull the ocean higher than the seawall and bring floodwater into the area.
A king tide is the highest predicted high tide of the year. Environmental scientists and activists say they’re a glimpse of the future, because as sea levels rise, what is today a rare “wicked high” tide will become increasingly closer to routine tidal changes. And on top of sea level rise, Massachusetts faces flooding risks from severe storms, which are expected to become more frequent a result of climate change.
Environmental experts and climate activists agree: Massachusetts isn’t prepared.
That’s because of where homes and businesses have been built, the state’s aging infrastructure, and a lack of protections for residents.
Built atop wetlands
The state is filled with residential areas that were once wetlands, brooks and streams that were drained or filled in.
“What once was a body of water is now the site of a road or a home,” said Emily Norton, executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association. “And as we have more precipitation, that’s where the water is coming back to.”
Stormwater drainage systems are already struggling to accommodate current precipitation levels, she said, leading to inland flooding.
“There are miles of stormwater pipes under our feet that we never think about, and they were built for a certain amount of precipitation. Now it’s a lot more,” Norton said.
Early urban architects didn’t have climate change in mind, Norton says, and the state is still catching up to planning decisions made long ago.
“We need to be looking at ways we can work with nature rather than always think we can control nature,” she said. “No one wants to talk about that, but the water is going to win.”
The state’s climate change assessment predicts annual flood damage will increase by $9.3 million by 2030 statewide.
“We are in no way prepared for even the most conservative estimates,” said activist Jamie McGonagill of Extinction Rebellion Boston.
In the last decade, the Massachusetts Energy Management Agency secured $120 million in federal hazard mitigation funds for Massachusetts communities, according to a spokesperson. In 2022, the agency launched a pilot program to increase equity in mitigation planning and encourage residents in vulnerable communities to apply for federal mitigation funding, giving 14 Massachusetts cities and towns funding to update or develop their local hazard mitigation plans.
Norton says the state needs to more aggressively work to prevent new infrastructure in vulnerable areas. Boston’s Seaport is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change: a report from the First Street Foundation found that the Seaport has a 99% higher flood risk than the rest of the state. And in Newton, the Countryside Elementary School — located in a FEMA flood zone — is once again under construction and rehabilitation after chronic flooding.
“It’s getting $20 million in [state funding],” Norton said. “All Massachusetts taxpayers are helping to rebuild this school because it floods, it’s in a former wetland, and we’re just building it in the same place.”
Lack of protections for homeowners
More than 400,000 Massachusetts residents live in high risk flood zones, which have at least a 1-in-4 chance of flooding during a 30-year mortgage, according to state data.
Massachusetts is one of 14 states across the country that do not legally require a disclosure of previous flooding to prospective home buyers, and a 2023 report from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council found that the existing information on the likelihood of flooding are “poorly predictive” of where flooding is most likely to occur.
“And it’s not just the financial cost, it could be the loss of your family photos or your kid’s artwork. It’s a really emotionally upsetting experience to have flooding happen to you,” Norton said. “Right now, the government is not stepping up, whether it’s with updated flood maps or disclosure requirements. We’re not doing what should really be the low-hanging fruit of protecting people from flooding and climate change.”
What’s next?
State leaders are beginning to turn their attention to the issue of stormwater drainage risks. On a recent episode of Commonwealth Beacon’s Codcast, Katherine Antos, the undersecretary of decarbonization and resilience at the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said inland flooding predictions have not received the same level of assessment as coastal flood risks.
“I will be honest, that is an area when I came in that we had less information,” Antos told Commonwealth Beacon. “It was a data gap, and it’s not just Massachusetts.”
More attention will be paid to inland flooding risks in the future, Antos said, in ways that go beyond what’s detailed in the ResilientMass plan, a proposal released by the Healey administration last year that includes more than 140 actions to improve the state’s resilience to climate change.
Massachusetts continues to lead on efforts to slow climate change. As soon as Friday, legislators are expected to file a bill that would reform siting and permitting for energy infrastructure and limit new natural gas infrastructure, despite setbacks over the summer that frustrated climate activists.
Gov. Maura Healey “strongly supported the passage of a climate bill this session,” according to a spokesperson, and has publicly prioritized climate change and resiliency as priorities for her administration.
While state leaders work to make Massachusetts greener, they continue to juggle the impacts of climate change perpetuated around the globe, and the state’s own history of building infrastructure in vulnerable areas.
McGonagill of Extinction Rebellion Boston says state and local leaders need to act with more urgency to ready the state for potential disaster and minimize the region’s carbon footprint — two issues that go hand in hand as climate change worsens across the globe.
“Internationally it is bleak, and nationally it is bleak, so I think it’s better for us to focus on what we have the capability to push and we have the capability to change state policies,” she said. “Governor Healey ran on a climate platform, as a climate champion, and that gives us the leverage to hold her accountable.”
