One of the many appealing characteristics of Old Saybrook and its Borough of Fenwick is that they are located where the Connecticut River meets Long Island Sound. That location, however, is also cause for concern: both have low-lying areas that increase residents’ vulnerabilities to sea-level rise and the natural events it has been found to exacerbate. And while local governments cannot prevent storms, they can create plans to mitigate their effects.

In early June, Old Saybrook and Fenwick’s third Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan (NHMP) was discussed at a public meeting. Originally scheduled for February, the meeting was postponed due to the U.S. government shutdown that started just before Christmas and ended in late January, preempting communication with federal entities. The plan is still considered a draft until it’s reviewed by the state Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS) and approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

DEMHS was “key in working with FEMA to [update] the state’s NHMP and they’ll look over [the updated Old Saybrook/Fenwick plan] to make sure that it’s consistent with the state plan,” said Christine Nelson, Old Saybrook’s town planner. “We were aware that they were updating the state plan so we drew down the state goals” and incorporated them into the local plan, she explained.

Once the new iteration of the local NHMP is approved, it will need to be formally adopted by the town and borough.

Plans must be updated every five years and the previous version was completed in 2014. For the 2019 update, the town hired a consultant, Samuel Bell of GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc., who previously worked with the town on two studies.

The first of these was implemented by the Sea Level Rise Climate Adaptation Committee, created by the Board of Selectmen.

“[F]or two years they just took on the simple task of looking at how sea-level rise and climate change—two conditions of natural hazards, not natural hazards themselves—would affect life in Old Saybrook,” explained Nelson. “They worked with the public and put together a report of findings.”

That “Report of Findings from a Study of the Effects of Sea Level Rise and Climate Change on Old Saybrook, Connecticut” was released in December 2015. It was intentionally written to be understood by the average citizen by avoiding overly scientific terms and focusing on “how the town might adapt to and mitigate against the effects of climate change and the impacts of sea level rise on Old Saybrook in the near- and long-term. We immediately added to our charge to educate the townspeople on our findings,” as the introduction says.

The second study was the Coastal Resilience and Adaptation Study, which was released in 2018 and addressed “how these changing conditions would affect our most probable natural hazards: coastal storms, hurricanes and nor’easters,” said Nelson. “Our most probable and life-threatening and property damaging events are coastal storms.”

The results of both studies “informed the update of the NHMP,” Nelson said. “This update is a lot more specific in characterizing the effects and suggesting some strategies that are a little bit more specific.”

As the NHMP must be updated every five years, [w]e have the opportunity to continue to get more specific and prioritize what we’re going to do,” said Nelson. Once the plan is adopted, however, it will be up to town leaders to implement it.

“Planning is one process but implementing is a different one,” Nelson pointed out. “This group has done [its] job—kept the plan updated.”

One of the benefits of creating an NHMP is the potential for funding: towns must have a plan to apply for federal mitigation funding, as opposed to relief funds, which are allocated after a natural disaster.

And, Nelson points out, listing potential mitigation projects in an NHMP makes the town eligible for a sort of upgraded level of relief funding. For example, if the NHMP includes a bridge that is in need of repair to mitigate potential damage during a natural event, and the bridge then actually is damaged in a natural event, the town will be eligible for funding not just to repair the bridge, but to repair it to the higher standard.

The draft 2019 NHMP is available on the town’s website under the “News” heading. Look for the announcement of the June 19 meeting, which contains a link to the PDF document.