AK Village's New Seawall Washes Away - Dedication Ceremony Canceled

[hatrack]

Sept. 20, 2006 — A funny thing happened just before a ceremony was to be held last week to commemorate a $3 million sea wall around the village of Kivalina way up on Alaska's Arctic coastline. The village, home to Inupiat natives for 4,000 years, is about to be washed into the sea, and the 1,800-foot wall is supposed to stop that.

But along came a modest storm, with winds of up to 40 miles per hour, and 160 feet of the wall washed out. The ceremony was canceled.

You're right. It's not funny.

Kivalina is one of an estimated 200 villages in the far North, fighting for survival, and at least three, including this historic community, may be lost within the next decade. The reasons are many, but a growing body of research suggests that global warming is at least partly to blame. There is less ice along the Arctic coastline because of warming ocean temperatures, and thus, less protection from relentless winter storms that undermine the coastal area.

EDIT

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=2464739&page=1

[rodeodance]

1. good pic of the shrinking island city at the site.

[hunter]

2. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Sadly, this is probably just the "clack, clack, clack" as we head up the ramp for the first big drop on this roller coaster.

[Ian David]

3. Global Warming or Gay Marriage? You be the judge... n/t

[katinmn]

4. But at least Sen. Specter brought home another load of pork for AK

a bridge to nowhere, a seawall ineffective against global warming effects...what is the diff?

The govt wanted to send a few crumbs to the natives, but they didn't care to take reality into account or have capable engineers design and build it.

[roguevalley]

6. actually, arlen spector is someone else's asshole. ours is

stevens.

[katinmn]

8. Oops. They're all starting to sound the same to me! Sorry.

[roguevalley]

10. that's okay. stevens. specter. all the same. :)

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Oops.

So, what bunch of halfwits built that that imposing edifice?

[roguevalley]

7. everyone else is living with smaller versions of hell than our villages

they are facing the end first and this isn't funny. I am sure the engineering was sound but ineffective against something like this, which we have never faced before. Poor village. wave it goodbye. they are moving shishmaref last I heard. Very tragic thing here, this.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Agreed, it's isn't funny...

Well it is, in the black humour you need on E/E - but a 40 mph storm should not be demolishing a seawall - it's hardly the worst the weather has to offer. Hell, my daughter's sandcastles have better structural integrity.

I guess we should be grateful: If it had failed during a more violent storm, the results could have been catastrophic. Look at NOLA.

But moving is a probably a better solution. Even the Dutch don't keep the sea out all the time, and they've been doing it for centuries. And it's not going to get any better any time soon. :(

[hatrack]

11. I would imagine they were building to deal with "historic norms"

They may have forgotten that those historic norms don't mean too much any more.

[Throckmorton]

12. Hay, I was gust ovr at free republik

and them freepers a toll me dar aint no globul aheatn.

So ther librl sucm