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Westbrook to form Climate Committee

The Board of Selectmen (BOS) unanimously voted to form a coastal resiliency committee and will now look to fill the committee.

Being a coastal town, it’s no secret that rising water levels are a threat to Westbrook. In order to combat that threat, the town is interested in starting a coastal resiliency committee. At a BOS meeting on Sept. 13 the Board voted form a committee with a goal of coming up with a coastal resiliency plan after 18 months of work.

The committee will not start meeting until the new year, giving the BOS time to make appointments. The seven-person committee will be comprised of representatives from the Planning Commission, Zoning Commission, Board of Finance, Harbor Management Commission, Council of Beaches, the business community, and an at-large member. First Selectman John Hall said the Board will solicit interested members to serve on the committee.

Town Planner Peter Gillespie said that the town had applied for a grant along with Clinton, Old Saybrook, and Fenwick that would allow for the towns to collaborate together on potential solutions.

“Rising Sea level unfortunately isn’t an issue that respects town boundaries. This is an issue that we can potentially collaborate on with the other towns,” Gillespie told the Harbor News after the meeting.

Gillespie said that the grant was applied for months ago, and that the state won’t rule on it likely until close to the end of the year, hence the committee not meeting until 2023. If approved, Gillespie said the grant will help pay for a consultant who can help study areas of concern and come up with strategy’s for combating the issue.

Even if the grant is not approved, Gillespie said the town still needs to tackle the issue.

“It’s one of the top three highest priorities in our plan of conservation and development. There are other grant opportunities we can pursue too,” said Gillespie.

Once the committee starts meeting, the members will receive staff support as needed and Hall said that there will be public meetings for members of the public to give their input.

“These are issues were going to be dealing with for many years,” said Gillespie.

Once the committee does the planning work, which is expected to take about 18 months from when it starts meeting, the BOS could choose to appoint a new committee to work towards the implementation of the plan or it could appoint a new committee. The BOS will make that determination in the future.