While workshopping policies that will shape the future of Humboldt Bay, the county’s Planning Commission couldn’t reach consensus on how to address sea level rise.
At its Sept. 3 meeting, the commission held its third workshop on the draft Humboldt Bay Area Plan, reviewing five sea level rise scenarios.
There’s uncertainty on how to plan for it as it hinges on a variety of factors, including future degree of emissions reduction.
A “high” risk scenario was in a previous draft of the plan but the categorization is brought down a notch in the current draft, to “intermediate high.”
“The reason we went away from high is because there’s a 0.1 percent chance that it would ever be exceeded and so that is maybe an unrealistic chance that it would happen,” said Planning Director John Ford when asked about it. “Intermediate high itself has a fairly low chance of ever being exceeded, as I recall that’s at 20 percent.”
He described intermediate high as “still a very conservative projection.”
But some commissioners are concerned about planning for uncertain outcomes.
“The higher the scenario, the more cost associated with building that adaptation,” said Commissioner Lorna McFarlane, adding, “You’re potentially adding, in some cases, millions of dollars to a project for some threat that may or may not be realized.”
While some commissioners supported going with the higher scenario, they acknowledged the challenges of forecasting.
“That may be part of the problem,” said Commissioner Todd Fulton. “I personally don’t think that the science is there for the intermediate high. I’m more comfortable around the medium area not only for the cost basis but I personally don’t see the science that justifies the intermediate high.”
