FENWICK ISLAND – A recent information session allowed residents to share the concerns regarding flooding and sea level rise in Fenwick Island.
Last Thursday, the Fenwick Island Infrastructure Committee held an information session on the town’s new resiliency study. Committee member Susan Brennan said the forum would allow officials to share information and collect feedback on recommendations.
“The infrastructure committee for the Town of Fenwick Island has chosen to create a resiliency study workshop with the intention of providing the community with information and the opportunity for discussion of the issues we are all facing,” she said.
In December 2021, the town selected AECOM to complete GIS mapping of Fenwick Island and develop short- and long-term solutions to sea level rise and flooding. And in March, the infrastructure committee received its first presentation of the resiliency study, which not only identified recent and ongoing resiliency initiatives, but proposed actions to alleviate flooding.
Committee member Tim Bergin told community members last week the study projects 42% of town roads and 57% of buildings to be inundated by 2080. He said flooding events would be worse for bayside properties.
“This is a scientific prediction,” he explained.
As part of the study, Bergin said AECOM had made several recommendations to address flooding and sea level rise. Short-term tasks include updating town codes and working with state and local agencies, while long-term tasks include elevating streets, residences and bulkheads.
“Sooner or later, it’s going to be crunch time and the more people who understand and appreciate the problem, the better off we’ll be,” he said.
Following the presentation, the committee held a Q&A session, during which several community members questioned the town’s plans for raising bulkheads. When asked if bulkheads could even be added behind existing riprap, committee member Richard Benn said it was one of many questions that needed to be answered regarding bulkheads.
“Right now, we’re not allowed to disturb the riprap as it exists,” he replied. “So that would mean digging behind that. With many town roads, we don’t have room for that. We’re going to be meeting with DNREC in the near future to talk about it.”
Benn said there were $6.9 million worth of bulkheads on private property that would need to be redone if the town followed through with AECOM’s recommendation. He said officials were also seeking input on how that should be funded.
Brennan noted that the town’s planning commission had recently worked with the University of Delaware to develop a new comprehensive plan, and that there could be opportunities to use a grant writer for certain resiliency projects.
“We just received comments back from our comprehensive plan, and there are other recommendations from the state on options for grant writing …,” she said. “So we are already considering this issue.”
Community members also asked when the town would begin to regulate bulkheads heights. One resident noted that several property owners were already replacing their bulkheads.
“It seems like those people who have to do it now, and it for it to be changed, it seems like you are chasing good money after bad,” he said.
Infrastructure committee member Amy Coombs agreed.
“Until the whole community is on board, how can we tell people what to do with their bulkheads?” she asked. “The important thing now is to disseminate this information to as many people as possible, so anyone changing their bulkheads knows this is coming down the road and that they may want to look into it.”
Committee member Tim Leahy argued that changes should be brought before the town’s charter and ordinance committee sooner rather than later.
“We may want to prioritize changes to that,” he said. “But it would require a code change.
Resident Vicki Carmean agreed.
“I would like to see something definitive on paper about the bulkheads …,” she said. “I think it’s time to move forward with actually doing things.”
Community members last week also discussed dredging, drainage and regional efforts to address sea level rise and flooding. Mayor Natalie Magdeburger noted that the town needed to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) as they continued with their own resiliency studies.
“There’s lots of pieces here that are not Fenwick Island pieces,” she said.
Benn noted that the town already had a meeting scheduled with DelDOT in September.
“We’re going to be stressing that at that meeting …,” he said. “Let’s work together, not independently.”
After a lengthy discussion, the infrastructure committee agreed to take information gathered from the meeting to further its resiliency efforts.
“It’s a complex issue, and it’s going to take all of us working together, pulling on the same rope, in the same direction, to solve this,” Benn said. “That’s what we want to hear your feedback on. What do you want to do?”
