Newsday: Sea level rising threat like 'giant snail', environmentalists say

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-liseal0812426089feb18,0,6788189.story

Sea level rising threat like 'giant snail', environmentalists say

BY JENNIFER SMITH

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9:22 PM EST, February 17, 2009

It's hard to whip up concern for a creeping threat whose predicted advance can be compared to "being attacked by a giant snail."

That's how environmental advocate Sarah Newkirk of the Nature Conservancy described sea level rise at a recent forum in Upton.

Her phrase was a rueful nod to empty seats at the meeting, convened by state planners to seek public input on rising oceans. Just a few dozen residents had shown up, though the turnout was more than in Nassau the day before, when organizers outnumbered audience members.

This despite new predictions that global sea level rise - already pegged at 2 feet by 2100 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - could come decades sooner. The changes would worsen flooding and erosion on Long Island's low-lying South Shore, home to half a million people, key roads and the region's largest sewage plants.

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[aquart]

1. We need to adapt those sewage plants NOW.

Whatever it costs or we'll look like the Dubai beach.