Protecting Parris Island from rising sea levels is urgent, leaders say
Efforts to protect Parris Island and its Marine Corps basic training base from climate change can’t be put on hold, local, state and national leaders said during an event organized by The Nature Conservancy in Beaufort on Tuesday.
It’s a sense of urgency that Dale Threatt-Taylor, executive director of the South Carolina chapter, said she feels has surged off the scale.
Protecting the base— an 8,095-acre site that trains 20,000 recruits a year — from climate change isn’t a new conversation. But rapidly rising sea levels and increased hurricane frequency, among other climate change concerns, is escalating the island’s vulnerability.
Not only are the island’s facilities threatened, leaders said, but it is an issue of national security.
Simply put: If climate-battered facilities were forced to close on the island, recruit training would be interrupted and preparedness slowed.
“Operational readiness is going to be the No. 1 issue,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said. “Any military base on the coast is going to have very similar issues, but the rate of sea level rise is very concerning. We’ve got to be thinking, 2030, 2050, what do we need to have on the base? What does that look like to ensure the longevity of Parris Island?”
The base also has a huge economic footprint in Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton and Colleton counties, in the ballpark of over $600 million, according to a 2017 report prepared for the South Carolina Military Base Task Force.
The highest projected sea level rise at Parris Island is 6.4 feet by 2100. That would cause water to overrun about three-quarters of the Marine Corps’ Parris Island land, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. A hurricane would only expedite the destruction.
While Parris Island has dodged total inundation from recent hurricanes, leaders on Tuesday pointed to the rebuilding of Florida’s Tyndall Air Force Base after Hurricane Michael decimated it, which required nearly $5 billion in repairs.
‘The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be’
The threat of hurricanes isn’t a new concern for Parris Island leaders.
Retired Marine Brig. Gen. Stephen Cheney, the Parris Island base commander between 1999 and 2001, recalled Hurricane Floyd and its predicted destruction of the training site. Back then, in September 1999, he was told the site would be under seven feet of water. Floyd brushed Parris Island but shocked Cheney into realizing the site’s vulnerability.
Now, over two decades later, Cheney said the need to act is more pertinent than ever.
Cheney said he doesn’t think problems at Parris Island are so bad now that a catastrophic event would totally destroy the island.
“In that context, I don’t think it’s too late,” said Cheney, who serves as president emeritus of the American Security Project. “The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be. You want to make that gamble? I think not,” he said.
Cheney said most people won’t think decades into the future, meaning the effects of climate change are a far away concern. But long-range planning isn’t uncommon, and certainly not for the Department of Defense, he said.
“If you’re going to build a ship, particularly an aircraft carrier, you plan for that ship’s life to be 50 years old. Right now, they’re going to the drawing board and saying, ‘What’s the threat going to be in 50 years? How do we appropriate funds we need to build the ship?’” Cheney said.
He believes the conversation should be no different when it comes to climate change and military structures.
“The sea level, at the minimum, (will rise) 3 feet… So why aren’t you planning for that instead of worrying about the ship you’re going to have in 40, 50 years?” he questioned.
Seawall talks
Cheney sees a two-pronged approach for armoring Parris Island against climate changes: mitigation and adaptation.
Mitigation measures, according to Cheney, are broader and more pervasive than adaptation, tackling issues such as lessening carbon dioxide emissions. He nodded to the Department of Defense’s massive fuel use as contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
Cheney said adapting to inevitable weather threats would require installing a sea wall where the island is most vulnerable to flooding.
In Charleston, a proposed 8-mile sea wall is estimated to cost $1.1 billion, according to The Associated Press. However, Cheney said parts of Parris Island that are not used would not need sea wall protection. Other infrastructure concerns include maintaining nearly 100-year-old buildings on the island.
Building a sea wall at Parris Island would cost millions, not billions, Cheney said, and because the facility is federally owned, the sea wall would need to be federally funded.
The Army Corps of Engineers has been at the head of recent conversations and efforts to construct sea walls in South Carolina, Mace said. Depending on where people want to lay sea wall, she said it can be a “touchy issue.”
“How you get your priorities is not easy,” she said.
Mace urged federal, state and local leaders to communicate among one another to ensure they can assess needed funds. If and when the funds are appropriated, Mace said she’d fight “tooth and nail” to get resources where they need to be.
As Parris Island stands today, state, local and national leaders agree on protecting the Marine recruit site and Cheney is sure of one thing: “It ain’t gonna close,” he said. “The Marine Corps is very good at keeping its spaces alive.”
This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 9:08 AM with the headline "Protecting Parris Island from rising sea levels is urgent, leaders say."
