CRMC’s Executive Director and Shoreline Change SAMP Project Manager, Grover Fugate, discussed sea level rise projections and potential impacts for Rhode Island in an August 23rd WPRI-Channel 12 interview. In the interview (available here), Fugate suggested that both Waterplace Park and Wickford village would be detrimentally impacted by projected sea level rise (to the tune of 6-feet over the next 100 years).

PoliFact.com compared Fugate’s warnings with a 2012 federal report on global sea level rise and NOAA projections, and found that:

While Fugate’s high-end figure is double the estimate of the

Intergovernmental Climate Change Committee, he was accurately quoting a figure that has been cited by four U.S.  agencies that deal with oceans and climate.

And federal, state and local planners and agencies agree that a six-foot rise would swamp significant locations in Providence, Wickford and elsewhere in coastal Rhode Island, as Fugate said it would.

Read the full analysis here: PolitiFact Rhode Island | R.I. coastal official says rising sea levels from climate change could swamp Waterplace Park in Providence and Wickford village.

To view the August 23rd WPRI-Channel 12 “Newsmakers” interview, click here.