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A Rising Tide

A Q&A with Olympia, Washington, city manager Steven Hall and public works director Michael Mucha

Olympia is Washington State's capital city. Will Olympia also become Washington's Atlantis? That's a stretch, but city officials there are increasingly concerned about rising sea levels as global warming melts polar ice. Olympia abuts Budd Inlet, a southern arm of Puget Sound where extreme tides are normal. Much of Olympia's downtown sits on low-lying land that may be sinking, due to tectonic forces, even as the water level is rising.

To find out how Olympia is planning for that future, I spoke with City Manager Steven Hall and Public Works Director Michael Mucha. They talked about the unexpected impacts rising seas would actually have on a coastal community such as Olympia, how the city is considering dealing with them, and how the issue of sea-level rise affected Olympia's debate about where to build a new city hall.

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Swope: I'd guess that for some people in government, thinking out 50 or 75 or 100 years would make their heads spin. On the other hand, you'll often see cities issue "vision 2040" plans saying what they want to be like many decades from now.

Mucha: If you step back and look at how long Earth has been here, and the thousands of years of human existence, two generations is such a blip. If I were to drive my car today, the emissions that go into the atmosphere today will still be in the atmosphere 50 years from now. That can be very discouraging. However, I can also say if I stop driving my car today, in 50 years there will be a big difference. We'll start to see the climate recover.

Hall: By the way, Michael rides his bike every day.

Mucha: We keep slamming our heads against the wall about trying to convert the generation that's set in its ways, when the younger generation--they get this. And they're already changing their lives to live differently. So we're going to see a natural change, and I think it's a major lifestyle change. It's not just driving a hybrid vehicle--it's not driving a vehicle. It's living close to work. Living more simply. We're going to see that actually happen as the younger generations move into power and move into their life. So part of this is waiting and letting younger people change the world with their awareness and motivation.

Swope: Some communities may actually see upsides to climate change. Northern areas may see longer growing cycles or new agricultural opportunities. I saw a map they were using in Chicago, showing that the climate of Illinois may resemble the climate of East Texas a century from now. They illustrated that by superimposing the state of Illinois over Texas. When I saw that, I wondered whether places with cold winters, who have been losing people and businesses to the Sun Belt, might turn that around. Is there any upside to global warming here?

Mucha: No. There's higher highs, and lower lows. I can't think of any benefits we'd have, even economic or social, as a result of nature being out of balance.

Hall: And there's a lot of negatives for Washington State, beyond just what happens in Olympia. One of the issues is snow pack. Not just for water supply for cities, but also for irrigation. Eastern Washington is an agricultural region and they rely heavily on snow pack and rivers and streams. And so as the snow pack declines, then agricultural production declines on the east side of the state and the battle for water becomes more intense.

The other issue is we have great skiing in the Cascades--it's part of the quality of life here. You can take off and in an hour and a half you can be on the ski slopes. That won't happen as much in the future as global warming occurs.

Our third issue is wildfires. Whereas now our forest and grasslands in Eastern Washington start drying out in July or August and we have fires in August or September, we will start drying in April or May and have fires in June, July and August. People go to Eastern Washington for camping, fishing, hiking and biking. Now it's gong to be on fire more often. So there aren't a lot of positives.

Swope: Tell me about your city hall project, and how sea-level rise played into the discussions of where to build. On the one hand, your downtown is increasingly vulnerable to flooding, but on the other hand if you put your city hall anywhere else it looks like you're abandoning downtown.

Hall: That's exactly right. Olympia has been talking for a long time about a new city hall building. Two or three years ago we got political support from our council and a financial package together to either buy or build a new city hall, which also will house the police. The first site we landed on was one owned by the Port of Olympia. And one of the issues that was raised was the sea-level rise. That site sits around 11 or 12 feet above sea level. At extreme high tides that puts it only one or two feet above those high tides.

So people started doing the math and said in 50 or 75 years you'll have water a couple of times a year at high tides up against the side of city hall. So we started asking how to address that. Early on, we asked, do we pull out of downtown? And the council said no, but if we construct at this site we have to address it. So we'll elevate the building, we'll reinforce the electrical, water and sewer systems, so that in those occasional high-tide situations, the building isn't compromised. And we also asked ourselves a question, because buildings aren't forever: can we use and protect this building for 80 years? And the answer is yes. Given the numbers we're seeing, we're sure we can.

After we did that, another site became available downtown, a former Safeway property which, unlike the port site, already has roads and utilities. So we actually have an option on that. And one advantage is that it's two-to-three feet higher above sea level, so we wouldn't have to do any of this work. So now we're evaluating the two sites. But the council is still committed to downtown investments. That's the first thing they said. One council member is just refusing to support building anything downtown. But the rest of the council has said downtown is the heart and soul of the community, and we we'll continue to invest and to lead private investment there, while doing what we need to in order to adapt to the changing climate and sea-level rise.

Swope: And those two goals aren't inconsistent with each other?

Hall: I don't think so. At the same time we're leading the charge saying there will be issues with sea-level rise, we're out there saying these issues will be manageable. The melting of Greenland is a wild card nobody can deal with. If that happens it's a whole new ballgame. But given what we know and our commitment to the community, I think it's a good decision.

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