Water, Water

When I was doing boat shows as a maritime carver, I was often asked why my business was located far away from the coast. My reply was that with Global Warming, my town would soon add “Port” to its name. Then I’d be on the coast. This was before there were estimates of how much flooding there would be in many coastal towns and cities. In 2024, this doesn’t seem like such an amusing anecdote.
Last fall, a major storm ripped through my area of central Massachusetts. I barely made it to my town. Then, at the foot of a hill, I found a lake where the road should have been. Knowing the terrain, I estimated that there was enough water that, with the centerboard up, I could sail one of the little 16-foot daysailers that my friend builds from where I was to the next city over. When I texted this out, the reply asked if I was, perhaps, just a bit “mellow“.

I had thought that where we were, on high ground, we’d be safe. But I failed to consider that over a century of development had altered the drainage patterns around me. Yes, in back of my property was a conservation trust- a sanctuary. But many wetlands had been drained for housing, and waterways had been put into culverts. All were built without regard to the strength of flowing water. When a storm came along that exceeded the hundred years or even the five-hundred-year estimates, man-made infrastructure gave way.

Less than a half mile from my home is a house awaiting demolition. The structure sits on an eroded berm, and its entire foundation is exposed. The water washed everything away past the basement, exposing the gravel levels below. It’s a grim reminder to all the residents of the power of water thwarted in its course.

It would have been a charity to the area’s environment to leave the small ponds and wetlands intact. But they were drained a century ago for housing as the farms that dotted the area gave way to the towns and cities.

Most recently, there has not been enough water, and the conservation land has been dry enough to burn. Water, either too much or too little, stymied in its path or barging through obstructions, is a problem of the seacoast or the highland.

The days of ignoring tides or filling wetlands with impunity are over. We are now beginning to pay the cost – whether you are at the coast or in the highlands.