Earth Equity News

New Army Corps Policy Forces Project Designers to Consider Rising Seas. By Taryn Luntz, Greenwire, November 11, 2009. "The Army Corps of Engineers must consider the effects of climate change as it draws up plans for flood control, navigation and other water projects under a new agency policy... Experts said the policy signals a shift in the culture of corps leaders, some of whom rose in the ranks during a time of growing awareness about rising seas. 'The people who had just joined this corps when we were pushing this idea, 25 years later, they're now the bosses,' said Jim Titus, a U.S. EPA researcher who specialized in sea-level rise. Titus last month privately published a study in the journal Environmental Research Letters that showed 60% of coastal lowlands along the Atlantic Coast are likely to be developed in the next century and less than 10% of that area is set aside for conservation. 'To ignore rising sea level in the design of civil works would be like ignoring the health effects of smoking a cigarette,' Titus said. 'We've gotten to that point.'"