On Friday, congressional Democrats will attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis to discuss how the Academy plans to deal with flooding forecast for the future.
Reps. John Sarbanes and Frank Pallone Jr., the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will converse with Vice Adm. Walter E. “Ted” Carter Jr., who runs the Academy.
The conference was triggered by an Army Corps study that estimated the water around Annapolis could rise as much as 3.8 feet by 2100.
City mayor Mike Pantelides, a Republican, will likely speak about the impact of floods on the city, which has budgeted $175,000 for analyzing how to alleviate the problem. $60,000 of the budget was allotted for in-kind services from the Army Corps.
Annapolis features some of the most 18th century buildings in the nation, according to the Capital Gazette. Earlier this month, Carter told the Gazette, “I honestly believe we’re going to have to do something significant in the next 10 to 20 years,” he said.
Stephen D. O’Leary of the Army Corps, which is working with the city to deal with the problem, said, “Annapolis is very challenging because of the historic preservation part of it. We found there are some passive things that can be in place permanently, and others that have to be installed as a storm approaches.”
The Army Corps analyzed the flood potential for both the 100-year flood and sea-level rise.
In a 2009 report O’Leary co-authored for the Army Corps, the study listed challenges for the Army Corps in dealing with climate change. On page 14, Challenge 2 was titled, “Data is Not Readily Available or User Friendly.” Underneath, the report stated “For Sea Level Change ► NRC Curves, IPCC data, and Updated Corps Guidance” and “For Other effects of Climate Change ► There is no centralized place to find data and there isn’t a mechanism to downscale models/data.”
The acknowledgment of using IPCC data is telling; the IPCC has cheated repeatedly on its global warming data for years.