Rising Waters: Sea Level and NASA Infrastructure

Rising Waters: Sea Level and NASA Infrastructure

Narration: Joe Atkinson

Transcript:

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When you think of sea level rise and NASA,

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if that's the kind of

thing you think about,

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I feel like it's only natural to imagine

scientists pouring over satellite data,

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trying to better understand

what's happening and what

the future might look like

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on our coasts,

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including right here where I live in

the Hampton roads area of Virginia. Uh,

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my name is Joe Atkinson and I'm a

science communicator at NASA's Langley

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Research Center.

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This area is one of the hot spots

for sea level rise in the country.

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Even on a beautiful, gorgeous, sunny day,

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we can have nuisance flooding

just because of a high tide,

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but we'll get back to this area

later. And specifically NASA Langley.

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The thing is, even as scientists

are studying sea level rise,

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the agency itself is having

to confront the reality of it.

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It has field centers and coastal

communities around the country.

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I wanted to find out how seriously

NASA is taking this threat.

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So I got in touch with a guy whose job

it is to worry about this kind of stuff.

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Uh, his name is Calvin Williams and he

is the associate administrator for NASA's

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Office of Strategic Infrastructure.

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First of all, I like to

say, thank you, Joseph,

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for the opportunity to

speak to you about this.

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Sea level rise is a very

major concern for us. Uh,

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we have about two thirds

of our NASA facilities

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are within 16 feet of sea level,

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and that comes to about

$20 billion value of, uh,

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infrastructure.

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That we have.

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Now that long list of facilities

includes Kennedy Space

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Center in Florida, Johnson

Space Center in Texas,

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Stennis Space Center in Mississippi,

Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana,

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Ames Research Center in California,

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and Wallops Flight Facility and NASA

Langley right here in Virginia. We have.

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Estimates that within the next 60

years or so that there could be

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potential four feet rise in sea level.

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And so therefore we are

trying to take measures now.

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Now in broad terms, that means

moving to higher ground or, you know,

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making facilities more resilient.

At two of NASA's launch sites,

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resiliency equals the movement

of lots and lots of sand.

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Um, for example, we have done some

reconstruction work at Wallops, um,

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and also at KSC where we have, um,

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stabilized the shoreline

and the dunes there.

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And that's something that we

have to, uh, replenish, uh,

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approximately every five years.

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So you have to wonder, is this something

that would keep Calvin up at night?

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Well, it is.

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Yeah, at the top of our lists, uh,

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definitely at the centers that

are on the coastal areas. Uh,

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we want to make sure that we are

taking the necessary steps to ensure.

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That, uh, in the future

we have launch facilities,

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research facilities that can

continue the mission of NASA.

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Now Calvin talked about the

beach replenishment efforts

at Wallops and Kennedy

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Space Center. Um,

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but I kind of wanted to dig

a little deeper and find

out what's happening at two

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of NASA's research centers

Ames on the West coast.

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And of course I wanted to know what's

happening here at Langley on the East

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coast. Um, since I work at Langley,

I knew exactly who to go to.

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And that's Loretta Kelemen.

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She is the director of Langley's

Center Operations Directorate.

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Certainly we are a, uh, a coastal,

uh, center it's on the coast.

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We're surrounded by two

rivers, um, the, uh,

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the York River and the James River

and along with the Chesapeake Bay.

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So a lot of opportunity for flooding

and for sea level rise to present

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itself as a problem, uh, for our center.

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And so this is a big issue for us and

certainly one we've been addressing for

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some time. Now.

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Conservative estimates show about a 15

inch rise in sea level at Langley by

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2080, uh, more extreme estimates,

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push that number as high as

49 inches or about four feet.

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The center uses a flood tool as sort

of a, I guess, like a crystal ball.

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This tool, great tool developed by our

geospatial information systems folks,

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our GIS team, uh,

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that allows us to visually picture the

rising sea level and which facilities

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and areas are affected.

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In 2011,

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following a study that highlighted some

of Langley's biggest vulnerabilities,

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the center,

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which is actually NASA's oldest - it's

just over a hundred years old now - began

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taking action in the form of a

major revitalization effort. Um,

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this effort aims to shrink and consolidate

Langley's campus and minimize those

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vulnerabilities.

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We've been demolishing facilities that

are in highly vulnerable areas and

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building all of our new facilities

and consolidating a lot of our,

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our missions into, uh, fewer facilities

at our higher elevations. And,

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and for us, uh, at NASA Langley, our

higher elevation is around 12 foot.

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And so we're not very high here. Further.

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Complicating the issue at Langley is

a phenomenon known as subsidence. Um,

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the ground,

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the center sits on is slowly sinking

by about 2.2 millimeters a year.

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Now,

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if you add that to the 4.6

millimeters of sea level rise a year,

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uh, let me do the math here.

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You're actually getting about 6.8

millimeters of relative sea level

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rise a year at Langley - currently.

The center isn't taking any chances,

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uh, they can't pack up and head

for the mountains, of course,

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but in addition to squeezing the campus

onto the highest possible ground,

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they're also making really

smart construction choices.

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The,

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study that we did in 2011 of course

recommended that when we build all of our

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first floor elevations to

10 foot, six inch minimums,

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and that goes into our design requirements

for all of our new facilities.

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For Loretta sea level rise,

isn't just a work concern.

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It's a personal concern too. Uh, she

and her family live right on the water,

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but the communities in Hampton roads

are taking the issue seriously.

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And the federal agencies are

too. So she takes heart in that,

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not just as a federal employee,

but also as a private citizen.

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I am I'm on the water. Always say,

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I'm on the water or I'm in the water

depending on the storm that day.

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So you just never know. So it is a

little personal and a little, um,

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drives a little anxiety, but

I'm very encouraged by, um,

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certainly the work that the city of

Hampton's doing. And I think, uh,

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the things that they'll do, uh,

will continue to support, uh,

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and they're very engaged in the

federal community here in Hampton.

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And I think all the things that they're

doing are going to help our center as

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well to try to move water, move water

out in a way, you know, from the,

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from the city.

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Okay.

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So now we're going to move all the way

across the country to Ames Research

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Center, which is in

Mountain View, California,

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right in the heart of Silicon Valley at

the southern end of the San Francisco

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Bay. Now, when I reached out to Ames,

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they put me in touch with

a guy named Garrett Turner.

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He is the restoration program manager

in the Environmental Management Division

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at Ames. And when Garrett thinks

of sea level rise at Ames,

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he thinks back to 1998 and a series

of storms that moved through the area.

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Now this gave officials at Ames a big

scare because it flooded the north end of

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the center and threatened to inundate

a telecommunication gateway facility

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there,

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which actually would have shut down

the internet for all of Silicon Valley.

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We managed to keep that from

happening by getting a lot of

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employees, uh, both civil

servants and contractors,

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to go and put sandbags out.

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And then we were able to pump

some of the water in the channels

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over a levee into Stevens

Creek. Um, after that,

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we kind of decided that we

needed to have a proactive, uh,

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way of at least addressing big storms.

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Now much like Langley, um, Ames,

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which is the second

oldest NASA field center,

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decided it needed to

look to higher ground.

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That decision was based on hundred

year sea level rise projections.

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We are now requiring a much

higher minimum elevation

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for a new facility that gets built.

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So we have these little top up

areas and our master plan has

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envisioned taking facilities that

are in that a hundred year flood,

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plain and relocating them and

relocating the entire campus

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farther south,

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which is several feet higher and has a

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much lower expected impact

from sea level rise.

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There is a wrinkle here.

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It's not just the bay

that's a problem at Ames.

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There's an old system of salt ponds and

levees nearby that date back to the 19th

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century. And they further

complicate things.

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And it's not a problem that Ames

can just deal with on its own.

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Levee maintenance is outside of

NASA's property and we can't go

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and fix all of these and keep them, uh,

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from pouring water into, uh, into NASA.

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One thing they're doing is working

with the local water district.

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We're working on trying to figure

out how we can reinforce those

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levees and potentially raise

them that we have kind of

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a bicycling and walking trail,

the bay trail that goes around.

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They'll have to look to their

neighbors on either side for help too.

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If we protect the levees immediately

in front of us and they do nothing with

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theirs,

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we end up with the water just going

over their levee and then coming in.

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So this is going to have to be a

partnership kind of regional with

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other stakeholders to make sure that

we can come up with a strategy that

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works for all of us.

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One of those strategies is actually to

turn those old salt ponds into wetlands,

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which would help slow the

effects of sea level rise.

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It would also be a return

of sorts to what once was.

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Civil engineers have it perfectly in the

early 19 hundreds - we drained all the

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swamps. Now we're creating wetlands.

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It's kind of reversing what we did before.

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So it's all part of the same training.

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We've had a little change of scenery here.

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Obviously I wanted to wrap things up

on my front porch here in Hampton.

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We're just a few blocks in from the

water and we're on relatively high

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ground. Still,

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worst case longterm sea level

rise projections would have me

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sitting in the water here, um,

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and even minor to moderate projections

are pretty bad news for some folks right

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here in this neighborhood, just a few

miles across the water in Norfolk,

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that way,

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the high tide nuisance

flooding I mentioned back at

the beginning of this video,

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um, is already encroaching

regularly on urban areas and

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frequently makes city streets

a gamble for drivers in all,

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but the tallest vehicles.

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And so just as these coastal cities are

having to deal with these wet realities,

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so too is NASA. Uh,

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when I set out to do this,

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I really had very little idea what

NASA was doing to deal with sea level

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rise itself. Um,

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now after talking to Calvin

and Loretta and Garrett,

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I realize that there's a

lot going on. In some cases,

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there are things that

centers can do similarly,

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like move facilities to

higher ground to help,

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but there's really no one

size fits all approach.

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Every place has its unique consideration.

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Ames has the levees and salt

ponds, Langley has subsidence,

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uh, Kennedy, and Wallops have

beach erosion to deal with.

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Staying ahead of this

stuff is obviously a big,

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big job that requires a lot

of expertise, foresight,

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planning, and coordination. Thankfully,

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it's a job that NASA is

taking seriously. Um,

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and it's a job that will allow NASA

to continue its critical work in

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space exploration and

aeronautics and Earth science,

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even as the water keeps rolling in.