Short Wave - When Sea Levels Rise, Who Should Pay?

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

Facebook's campus on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay is at risk from rising sea levels. So is a nearby low-income community. That's raising questions about who should be paying for climate change. Taxpayers or private landowners (in this case, some of the world's largest tech companies) with waterfront property? NPR climate correspondent Lauren Sommer explains in the first of two episodes.For more on this story, including pictures and videos, click here. Email the show at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Maddie Safai here with NPR climate correspondent Lauren Summer. Hey, Lauren. Hey, Maddie. So where are we starting today? Okay, today we're beginning with a giant pile of dirt. Okay, I'll go with it. I'll go with it.

Okay, it's not just any pile of dirt. It happens to be right outside of Facebook's campus in the San Francisco Bay area. Where we're standing right now is the outboard levy of the Facebook campus in Menlo Park. That's Kevin Murray. He works for the San Francisco Creek Joint Powers Authority, which is an agency that works on flood protection in the area. We're walking on top of that levy, which surrounds the tech company's, you know, brightly colored buildings. So why does Facebook need a levy? Well, the company's headquarters is right on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. And over the last decade, they've built huge state-of-the-art buildings on the waterfront.

So the levy is protection from the bay. But Kevin told me levy isn't exactly the right way to describe it because a levy is designed to protect people. It has to mean engineering standards that ensure it holds up. These don't. The structures that are providing flood barrier now are not adequate and are subject to failure if we have a really big tide or a big wind event or a big storm surge. So, Lauren, did Feaswick know that when they built there? They did. And now the risk is getting even bigger because sea levels are right.

rising in a hotter climate. So the region is looking at building a bigger levy, 16 feet tall. It'll cost more of an $100 million, and the federal government just preliminarily awarded about half that money. But that's raising questions about who should be footing the bill for adapting to the consequences of climate change. Coastal cities are going to need billions of dollars to protect their shorelines from rising seas. So today on the show, the tensions growing about where that money will come from, the taxpayers or from the private landowners on the waterfront like Facebook, who are at most risk. You're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR.

Okay, before we get started, today we'll be talking about Facebook, and we should say that Facebook is one of NPR's financial contributors. All right, Lauren, so we're starting in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Facebook just made a major investment on a waterfront property. Yeah, definitely a big investment. The buildings were designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. They're worth more than $2.5 billion today. For a project that big, an environmental analysis has to be done. And it found the property is vulnerable to flooding and could be inundated with 16 inches of sea level rise, which could happen within decades. Studies show by the end of the century, sea levels could rise as much as seven feet. So what was Facebook's response to that information? Yeah, so when they bought the campus, you know, some of the buildings were already built. But for their new buildings, they raised the first floor by almost 13 feet.

So it's elevated. That's pretty standard when you build in a flood zone where maybe there's one big disaster. But sea level rise means that every high tide just keeps getting higher over time. So the roads and everything else around there would be chronically flooded. So now the region is looking at holding. back the water. I went to see one of the projects. Is this salt? This is a remnant mixed of salt and gypsum. Just outside of Facebook, before you get to the bay itself, there's this big expanse that has these winding channels of water and white, crusty salt deposits. Dave Halcing, who is

executive project manager of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, showed me how it was once used for salt production. Like table salt? How does that, how does that work? Yeah, table salt. A century ago, you know, companies created these huge ponds that would be filled with water from San Francisco Bay and then it evaporates and it leaves the salt behind. It's still done today around the bay, actually, but these particular ponds aren't used anymore. And that's what the levees were originally built for, was to protect these ponds. They weren't built high enough to protect people. And Originally, the salt ponds used to be tidal marshes, this really important ecosystem for birds and wildlife. So now there's a huge project to restore them happening right outside of Facebook.

And Dave says the marshes will also help with flood protection because they're a buffer. If you have a healthy functioning marsh in front of it, it absorbs a lot of that wave energy and it diffuses it. It slows it down. You can think of it as a sponge. So the marshes help prevent bigger and bigger waves. from hitting the shoreline as sea levels rise. Yeah, and all around the South Bay, you know, near Silicon Valley, there's an effort to bring back thousands of acres of marshes.

But it's expensive work. So the restoration project approached Facebook about chipping in since some of it, you know, is right on their doorstep. Right. But the company declined to contribute. For what reason? Facebook declined my interview request, and they didn't respond to that particular question. Okay.

Interesting. Now, the marshes alone won't be enough to stop sea level. rise. The region will need a new, bigger, levy. And the levy is important to Facebook and the city next door. And it's a city with a lot fewer resources. If we were to get hit, we would be the first. That's Leah Gru. She lives in East Palo Alto. I went for a walk with her and her teenage daughter, Helena, and their French bulldog, Pua. East Palo Alto is one of the few low-income communities of color left in Silicon Valley. An identity, it's trying to hold. hold on to. Housing prices have skyrocketed here. Leah's house, you know, and half the city,

is also in a flood zone like Facebook is. And Leah didn't really think about it until her daughter came home from high school talking about it. She used to brush it off. Yeah. And I'd come back to her, I'm like, mom, did you know? And I'd be like very enraged about it. Okay, so has she gotten her mom to start thinking about climate change in flood preparation? Yeah, both of them are involved now. community meetings because they've seen how other disasters have hit communities of color, you know, like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. A lot of people were displaced and just didn't return. And that's Leah's fear.

They'll move us out to like, sorry, I didn't want to think about it. But we'll get moved out to like Stockton, Sacramento. Okay. So a levy could protect the community in East Palo Alto as well as Facebook. I mean, how are people feeling about having their city's fate intertwined with this company? Right. Helena says questions about fairness have been coming up in the community, as they've been hearing about these plans to build a levy. Their plan included Facebook, that we have to share our resources,

which they're supposed to be protecting us with Facebook. And it's kind of irritating. Here's how it breaks down. To build the new levy, East Palo Alto is putting in $5.5 million. Facebook is putting in a bit more, 7.5.4.5.5.5. That's enough to protect just one section of their campus, not the whole thing. And the company's revenue is 2,000 times greater of an East Palo Alto city budget. Wow.

The federal government through FEMA just preliminarily awarded the project $50 million and hundreds of other projects around the country, you know, who also applied for that funding, including low-income communities, got nothing. So the biggest chunk of money, then, is coming from taxpayers and it's helping both. the community there and one of the wealthiest tech companies in the world, while others are going without any federal funding. Right. I mean, does that make sense? Yeah, that's something that local governments and communities are grappling with all over right now. Climate change is forcing these ethical conversations, and no one has like a formula that spits out an answer. Facebook, in a statement to NPR, said the company is doing its part to protect its campus and neighboring communities. But I spoke to the mayor of East Palo Alto, Carlos Romero, and he says it illustrates a

larger problem. You know, private landowners pay taxes, but that doesn't cover these sea level rise projects at this point. So cities, they haven't settled on a way to charge people who are building in the flood zone. And he says those developers have a duty to pay more because the flood protection will boost the value of their land. All of us are going to have to contribute. And I think that we should indeed figure out a way where corporations who are making billions of dollars contribute to this in a significant way because their very livelihood is challenged. So it sounds like at this point, private landowners are chipping in for this however they kind of want to, right? There's no standardized way they're assessed for sea level rise protection.

I mean, that seems like a big problem if you look at how much money cities are going to need. Right. And it's hard for cities because they want to incentivize building usually to bring in jobs and property taxes. So they don't want to add costs that might dissuade development. Menlo Park, the city Facebook is in, gave itself the ability to charge new developments for their fair share of sea level rise protection, as they put it, but the city hasn't followed through to pass that policy so far. I feel like I've heard the phrase fair share a lot, but everybody has a different definition of what's fair, right? Like it seems like it could get even more complicated when you have somebody who,

who built on the waterfront 100 years ago versus someone who built their last year when the risks from climate change were super clear. Yeah, this is tricky. And there's a big urgency to figure it out because these projects take decades and cities need to start now. They need to figure out how climate change can be baked into these decisions about where and how to build. Because they're going to need those billions of dollars, you know, not altogether, each city is going to need that. Yeah. In the meantime, you know, companies like Facebook are putting thousands of people into places that could flood, which really raises the stakes for figuring this out. I mean, are there any cities saying, no, you can't build here because of these climate risks? That discussion is starting to happen. And actually, I've got a second episode coming on this about another Bay Area city that's debating it with another tech giant, Google. Ooh, part two, part two. All right, Lauren Summer. I am looking forward to it.

Thank you for your reporting. Yeah, they'll be back soon. This episode was produced by Britt Hansen, fact-checked by Burley McCoy, and edited by Giselle Grayson. I'm Maddie Safaya. Thanks for listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR. Over this last year and a half, the world's been through a lot. So on this season of the StoryCorps podcast, we'll hear stories reminding us that even when times are hard, we can still begin again. Listen to our new season, wherever you get your podcasts.