Fair Haven ​“Climathon” Shines A Light On Flooding Risks

Luz Martinez is looking forward to biking more and driving less in her new home neighborhood of Fair Haven — even as her eyes are now open to the area’s vulnerability to flooding.

Those were just one Fair Havener’s takeaways from a half-day-long, climate change-focused workshop held at John S. Martinez School.

That event, the city’s first-ever ​“Climathon,” took place on Saturday at the James Street public school. The event was organized and hosted by a new environmental action group called Reimagining New Haven in the Era of Climate Change.

Martinez told the Independent that she just recently moved to Fair Haven with her husband and son. It wasn’t until this Saturday’s event that she learned about the flooding risks Fair Haven faces due to climate change. The neighborhood is particularly vulnerable to both flooding and heat-related effects of climate change. 

“I wasn’t even aware of that,” she said on Saturday. 

Over 100 residents, public officials, and environmental activists poured into the school’s cafeteria on Saturday. They listened to a line-up of nearly a dozen presentations on topics ranging from sustainable farming to climate migration and rising sea levels and temperatures. After hearing from speakers, attendees broke out into table groups for workshops to discuss solutions addressing these issues.

Martinez learned about the event when she saw posters circulating around the neighborhood over the last few weeks. Her son, Riley, is in third grade at John S. Martinez School. She said he’s been learning about climate change at school. 

Ever since she got a car, Martinez added, she’s noticed her family has become ​“extra lazy,” driving short distances when they could have walked. That’s why Martinez said she wants to get a bike. While she said she feels safe biking in a nearby park, she much prefers cycling around where her in-laws live in Waterbury. 

“I feel better and safer riding my bike over there,” she said. Martinez said she likes that bike trails are set apart from the road there, while in New Haven, she said, she would have to wait for cars to pass her on the street. 

Flooding Risks Dissected

John Truscinski, director of resilience planning at the UConn-affiliated Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA), explained in his Saturday presentation how CIRCA studies climate change’s effects in Connecticut.

Truscinski walked through how sea levels are expected to rise in the near-term thanks to higher global temperatures and melting ice sheets. Even if greenhouse gas emissions drop to zero today, Truscinski said, the state can expect up to 20 inches of sea level rise by 2050 because of past emissions.

While the long-term impacts of climate change on the state are less clear, according to Truscinski, the state will almost certainly experience flooding to a much greater extent. 

The current categorizations for flooding include minor floods which Connecticut experiences a few times a year, moderate floods which are more destructive and occur every three to five years, and major floods which are big storms like Hurricane Sandy and which happen every 15 to 25 years. 

“But the major thing we see when we elevate the Long Island Sound by 20 inches is that the frequency of these events shifts,” said Truscinski. 

This means that with higher sea levels, the state may see moderate flooding a few times each year while major flooding might tear through the state every three to five years. 

Truscinski said the ​“good news” for New Haven is that it has relatively high ground, although areas such as Long Wharf and Fair Haven are lower ground. In these areas, Truscinski said, he thinks the city has been doing ​“a great job” working on projects to prevent and try to understand flooding threats. He noted initiatives to update the city’s draining system and discussed potential projects including installing levees and walls for protection that might be part of the city’s future. 

“It’s not a question of; ​‘Is the whole city going to be underwater?’ It’s just that there are parts of the city where we have to think about change,” he said. 

Heat-Resistant Lettuce

Cortney Renton, executive director of the local farmers market nonprofit CitySeed, spoke about how food prices and access to food have been and will be impacted by climate change. 

She said the organization has heard concerns about heat waves and soil degradation from farmers in the state. This has pushed Connecticut farmers in recent years to choose different crops, with some farmers even opting for more heat-resistant lettuces. 

Renton spoke about how tangible the effects of flooding have been on farmers in the state over the past few years. She said some farmers lost entire crops because of flooding last year. 

Toward the top of these farmers’ minds now, Renton said, is drought. In July, Gov. Ned Lamont declared a Stage 2 drought level for all eight Connecticut counties. 

“Farmers are thinking about: ​‘How do I plan for this, how do I sell my crops, how do I know what I’m going to grow when 2021 has unprecedented flooding?’” Renton said. 

The drought and flooding events the state has faced affects food pricing and scarcity, Renton noted. ​“If you haven’t been able to find some of your favorite crops over the last year or this summer, that might be why,” she said. 

But there has been some movement to support farmers and secure community food supplies despite food shortages. To combat national and global food shortages during the pandemic, Renton said that community supported agriculture ​“blew up” over the pandemic. 

With pledged support from communities or individuals who in turn have steady food access, some farmers even sold out, according to Renton. 

“Sometimes we think these giant global food systems are too big to fail, but they’re actually incredibly fragile and we’ve seen local food systems really step up in those moments and provide solutions,” she said. 

"We Have To Make It Grassroots"

Brianna Dragunoff said she heard about Saturday’s event from a friend in the Connecticut Audubon Society. Dragunoff used to work at the Mystic Aquarium, where she often focused on conservation and education. 

That experience ​“sparked” her interest to take a class on environmental science at Gateway Community College where she is in her final semester. The Wallingford native now lives in Watertown.

She said she thinks that congestion and clutter are large environmental factors New Haven has to confront. ​“We’re a super big commuter culture rather than walking, so I think that’s a huge issue for New Haven in particular,” she said. 

To alleviate New Haven’s ​“commuter culture,” Dragunoff said the city needs to continue working on better and more accessible public transportation. Ahead of Saturday’s event, Dragunoff said she was looking forward to learning more about the local impacts of and responses to climate change. 

“I think I understand it on a pretty wide scale, but I want to know what Connecticut and even New Haven county, in particular, is doing to create change in our local community,”

Dragunoff said she ​“never” hears much about climate-related initiatives in the city. 

City Engineer​Giovanni Zinn sat at a back table, listening to the presentations and thoughts attendees shared in open-mic sessions or at their tables. 

“There are so many important parts to the climate emergency, it’s really energizing to see so many people out here today,” Zinn said. 

Several speakers mentioned heat-related impacts from the ​“urban heat island” effect that causes cities like New Haven to experience warmer temperatures than surrounding areas. 

To address this issue, Zinn mentioned the city’s ​“heat island ordinance” that has been in place for a decade. ​“It quietly has had a fairly substantial impact and I think we’re looking at ways to make it even more impactful,” Zinn said. 

The ordinance mandates that 50 percent of non-roof hard-space on a property must be highly reflective or shaded. 

Zinn said it is ​“hard to quantify” what impact this ordinance has had on New Haven since it came into being. He said the city is working with CIRCA to better understand the impact of rising temperatures and the heat island effect. 

Newhallville community organizer Doreen Abubakar — who has worked to implement more greenspace across the city’s residential neighborhoods, changing vacant lots into gardens and community gathering spots — spoke about increasing climate-change literacy. 

Abubakar said her aim now is to get more people connected to such information through citizen science projects. She said she plans for these projects to focus especially on water-related studies. 

“Affluent people cannot save the world by themselves, wealthy people cannot save the world by themselves, nor can the educated person,” she said. ​“This is why we have to make it grassroots.” 

In early November, Abubakar said she plans to launch meetings to find people interested in becoming part of the citizen science campaign.