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Episode 4.2 - Climate Adaptation & Resource Preservation in Essex County
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Patrick: Welcome everybody to the National Heritage Areas Podcast. I’m Patrick Shea, and I’m here today with three guests: Peter Samuel, as well as Paul DePrey and Annie Harris. I’ll let everybody introduce themselves and tell me a little more about what you do. Peter, would you like to begin? Peter: Yeah, hi. Hello everyone, and welcome back to our podcast series. My name is Peter Samuel, as Patrick said. I’m the manager of the National Heritage Areas program in our region, where we have 23 National Heritage Areas. And I’m here today, as Patrick mentioned, with Paul and Annie, and they have a special relationship, from my observation, as they work very closely together, as a National Park unit and a Heritage Area. And that’s something that we really strive for in our region, is to connect up parks and our heritage areas, and have them both do programming and projects together when they can. Today’s episode is a continuation of our climate change series. And you’ll hear from both Paul and Annie how climate change is really having an impact, mainly because they’re both parks…and a heritage area…on the coast. And Annie, let’s start with you, Annie, and if you could just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Essex National Heritage Area. Annie: Sure, so I’m Annie Harris, Director of Essex Heritage, and we’re the 500 sq mile National Heritage Area just north of Boston, Massachusetts, and we go up to the New Hampshire border. And we have a lot of the Atlantic Coastline from just north of Boston to New Hampshire, including the largest Salt Marsh in New England. So, much of our interpretation of our heritage centers on the ocean, and the fishing, and the long tradition of shipbuilding and maritime trade. And that is partly why we work so closely with Salem Maritime, we share a lot of themes with them, we also share themes with Saugus Ironworks in terms of early industrial history. So we have been really very involved with the coast, and we’re really seeing the impact of the changing climate in our heritage area. And with that, I’ll turn it back to Peter. Peter: Yeah, thanks Annie, and now I’ll turn my attention to Paul. Paul, give us a little background on what your work is about. Paul: Sure, happy to do so Peter. And Annie really kind of gave a really great sort of overview of the region. It is right up against the Atlantic Coast north of Boston—some wonderful, beautiful areas in the region. As Superintendent of these two National Historic Sites, Salem Maritime and Saugus Ironworks, I oversee the operations of each unit—park staff, obviously, and our budget—but there’s a big part about being a Superintendent and particularly in these two locations, in that they’re set inside, entirely inside, Essex National Heritage Area—and that is, really focusing on the partnerships that we can generate to really deliver National Park Service programs, not just to the visitors that come to our site, but to the communities that surround our sites. Salem Maritime’s mission is to represent, interpret, and share with people who visit our site, and the communities, information about New England’s Maritime history, which is, frankly, a lot. And it’s important that we understand the impact that climate will be having, not just on, you know, the historic buildings, but also on the ecosystem, ecosystems that these historic structures and landscapes are set in. Peter: Thanks, Paul. You know, in our first episode we talked about some of the potential for protecting cultural resource sites. Often people tend to look more at what the, you know, impacts on natural resources are going to be, but certainly, the cultural resources are also very affected. And I know, in prior conversations, Paul, you’ve been talking a little bit about, you know, folks who now have to fill in their basements, things you may need to do about raising up the wharves in Salem. And Annie, you’ve talked about things that are happening in the Great Marsh. Maybe you could just elucidate a little bit more—Annie, I don’t know if you want to start, you know, what the potential impacts are and how you’re seeing things move forward. Annie: So, as you said and Paul said, it’s both the impacts, we’re seeing the impacts on both the landscape and also the built environment—seeing differences in weather, and rainfall, and the amount of water in rivers, but I think the largest impact we’re seeing is with the sea. And it really has two impacts. One is obviously storm—some of the storms are getting bigger and they’re driving more flooding. But we also have the tides, and we are seeing that the tides, we have fairy large tides here, you know, nine-foot tides, but we’re seeing that we’re starting to get more “king tides” which are 11 feet or more. And as those get more regular and they see rises, you have more, what’s called “sunny day” flooding—so, even, it can be a nice day and there can be no storm, but you can still start to see some places and some roads flooding. So, as I mentioned earlier, a large part of the heritage area, particularly along the coast, is what’s the Great Marsh. It’s a huge--over 20,000 acre--marshlands. And it’s…in a number of communities, and it’s managed by a number of nonprofits and state agencies, and actually even U.S. Fish & Wildlife. And it’s studied as an area of critical environmental concern. And there is some adaptation going on to climate change, and fortunately it has some flexibility in that it is a large marshland, and there are some barrier beaches and they do move, and the marshlands are able to adapt a bit. So right now, there is still concern and study of it, but it’s a little easier to look at than some of the hard surfaces in the built environment and the coastal communities, which are, you know, really right there on the edge and have very little options…although, there are efforts of, you know, to try to grow more plants, and grasslands, and stuff, in the water to act as buffers. So, you know, everyone is really in the early stages of looking at this impact, I mean, I think now we’ve been talking about this for the last ten years. But it’s only been in the last few years that the general populace is starting to recognize that things really are changing. And the sea really is coming up higher, and it’s closer. So with that, I will turn it back over to maybe Paul, to comment on some of the things that he’s looking at specifically in the parks. Peter: Yeah, Paul, tell us more, a little bit more about the wharves. And, I know you had mentioned the Keeping History Above Water Initiative. Paul: Let’s start with the wharves. Peter: Okay. Paul: So, just to clarify, there have been wharves along the waterfront in this part of the world for hundreds of years. And it’s really important to also understand that lots of times these wharves sort of deteriorate over time and then go away. But every so often, you have a wharf system that is preserved because of, for whatever reason—you know, sedimentation, or backfilling within a channel, or something along those lines. And that was actually the case at Saugus Ironworks. Before it was a National Historic Site, it was known as a pretty important archaeological resource within the community of Saugus. And in the 950s there were excavations that were conducted, to understand the extent to which the industrial zone—where the blast furnace was that created the pig iron, and where the forge was that transferred it, you know, from one state of iron to another. And at Saugus, when they were excavating the section near the water, they realized that the bulkhead of the pier, or the wharf system that had been in place since the 17th century, was a good three feet lower, below the water level. Which is a good indicator that over the course of 300 years, sea level rose about three feet. And you know, this was a review that was a peer-reviewed, academic journal-type article that was published in the 1950s. And that sort of is kind of an early harbinger of the types of messages that we’re getting and, even as recently when the IPCC’s report came out about the human cause, impact to many of the climate imbalances that we see today. The other sort of little anecdote that I like to share with people about, at Salem Maritime, is that 1938 is when the National Historic Site was established. It was the first National Historic Site in the nation established. And initially, the proposed named of the site was to be Derby Wharf National Historic Site. Because Derby Wharf--one of four wharves that are part of the waterfront system at Salem Maritime—Derby Wharf is by far the longest, and creates sort of a barrier, buffer, if you will—sort of like a barrier island, or a buffer—to a huge section of Salem that used to be part of Salem Harbor, but had been filled in. And so, these are the lowlands, if you will, to the community of Salem. Lots of private land, lots of, you know, investment that’s gone into this space that used to be the water, and is now land. And, you know, the Park Service sort of took a look at the condition and state of the wharf systems—you know, as I mentioned, Derby Wharf, and there’s another large-ish wharf called Central Wharf. And both of these were in really, really poor condition. And every generation since the 1940s, the National Park Service has invested time, talent, money in rehabilitating the wharves to ensure that they’re both present as parts of the cultural landscape, which is part of the reason that the site was established, to preserve this wharf system, as well as the historic buildings in vicinity of the wharves. Peter: So Paul, sorry to interrupt, but I just wonder, you know, in your description of things and certainly, you know, in the rise of the sea level and its impact on the wharves, historic wharf structures, is there, but is there also a nation that some things you will not be able to save? Are people looking at it that way, like, ‘okay this, we save, this, we’re not going to be able to’, because of, you know, these changes and impacts of climate change? Paul: Yeah, you know, you’re talking about triage essentially. Peter; Yeah, yeah, exactly. Paul: And that triage decision-making process is one that’s part of a conversation really. It’s probably the underlying motivation for figuring out, “how do we keep history above water?” One example of a triage decision that, you know,30 years ago would not have passed muster but today is a reasonable approach is, for example, if there’s a historic building that has a basement, the idea that maybe with sunny day flooding, as Annie mentioned, the water table rises and floods the basement on a regular basement, to a point that it would actually damage the above-ground elements of the structure. So, filling in basements is one of the ways to ameliorate—that’s all you’re doing, is, you know, you’re putting a band-aid on something. But it is to extend the integrity, the cultural integrity or cultural significance of the structure. So… Peter: Yeah Paul: Yeah Peter: Well, I just wondered, you know, Annie, from your perspective, are you dealing with some of that within the heritage area in terms of this triage that Paul is mentioning—you know, what can we save, what can we not save. Has it gotten to that point yet? Annie: I would say we’re really at the early part of that. We’re still in this educational phase. You know, the State and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has done some really great mapping, and that’s just starting to get out. And it shows present-day flooding, and the likelihood of…where the inundation will be, from tides and storms, in 2030, in 2050, and in 2070. And we’ve been facilitating some of those presentations and conversations with communities to look at these maps. And so, again, I think we’re in the early stages of people starting to recognize and kind of wrap their mind around, ‘Oh, my neighborhood…gee, you know, by 2050, actually I may run some risk of flooding’. And it’s shocking, and it’s very difficult, you know, because these are star communities, where people have lived, and the buildings have always been there, and we really value our heritage and history, and the idea that some of it may be lost, or need to be modified, is very difficult. We, I think, as I said, I think we’re in the early phases. This conference, or kind of workshop, that’s taking place in mid-September, is the first time that this has been convened in Salem. I think, we’re going to have a lot of--It’s going to be mostly virtual--I think we’ll have a big audience. When we did these mapping presentations, we had a huge crowd. I think people are just starting to focus on it, but people are obviously very, very interested in it. Some of the presentation at this conference will be what’s been done in historic communities of Charleston, South Carolina, what’s been done with Carbury Bank, and how one might approach historic properties. But this is really new stuff. There aren’t that many examples. Boston’s done some planning, but it’s mostly planning and design for a few buildings that actually started to implement this. Patrick: So, Annie, you mentioned education and how heritage organizations or people in cultural resources especially now are in a big education and information-gathering phase. Looking to the future, what are some opportunities for public education and interpretation at a park or a Heritage Area? I thought I’d mention that in September, in addition to the Keeping History Above Water conference, for instance, an exhibition will be on display at the National Park Service regional visitor center on New Liberty Street in Salem, titled “Changing Climate on Derby Wharf”. So thinking about, perhaps, from a visitor experience or public education and interpretation perspective, what are some opportunities for communicating challenges, as well as what cultural resource preservation can do? Annie: So we are, as I said, starting to help organizations get information, particularly these maps showing some of the future predictions, out. One of the, obviously, one of the few silver linings in the whole pandemic has been the use of Zoom and virtual meetings. It’s a really good medium for getting this information out to a broad audience. And so we’ve had some of those meetings, and working with Salem Sound Coastwatch. I’m sure there’ll be more meetings coming up. We also do a lot of work with teachers, and particularly teachers in place-based education. More of them are requesting help in how they talk about climate change and how they can work it into their curriculum. We just came off a very successful weeklong workshop with a group of teachers from this region. And we spent a whole day with them up in the Great Marsh, talking about the dunes and resiliency that we’ve been doing, starting with the natural resources, and some of the challenges as well. Peter: Great, thanks Annie. I think maybe we’re getting towards the end here, but I think something that Patrick and I have talked about is making sure people still have some sense of hope, you know, that we communicate something in terms of resiliency, some kind of positive message, because it can get, we can get sort of in a gloom and doom mode. And you know, Patrick and I have talked about that, as, how do you balance out, so that we’re…we talked about it in our first episode…so that it’s not too dark. That we can look forward and know that we can adjust in some ways. Annie: I mean, I would say that a lot of the answers aren’t very clear still, but I think the change that I’ve noticed is that people are willing to talk about it now. Patrick: Paul, do you find any sort of hope in past adaptive practices when it comes to cultural resource preservation along the coast, from a park perspective? Paul: Well, yeah, absolutely. In the past, moving something like a lighthouse away from an eroding bluff was, you know, like ‘Oh, we’ve got to keep it up next to the water, as close as we can’. Well, you know, if you, do that, you’re going to lose the resource. So, move the dang building, right? Well, that’s not anything new. Buildings have been moved around all over the landscape of New England. It’s cheaper to, you know, move your house and buy land somewhere else and move your house to it rather than build a new house. And that is the type of approach that has been part of, you know, what I would refer to as, this is a cultural resource preservation approach. And so I think there is a lot of hope for the creativity, and that communities can come together and develop, in order to preserve those resources that are so important to them. Peter: Well thank you. Paul, I think that’s a great place to end--that we can all look forward to creative preservation strategies, and that’s what we’ll be together working on. And I think, you know, you and Annie have proved in working together as partnership and collaborating on a lot of different things and certainly, the impacts of climate change, that’s going to be a huge lift for both of you. But working together, and working with the community as you pointed out Paul, is really critical to both maintaining the park but also maintaining all the great resources within the community and within the heritage area, I want to thank both Annie and Paul for joining u today. Patrick; Thanks Peter. Yeah, this is a great way to wrap. I also want to thank Annie, Paul, and also yourself Peter, for being here today for a great discussion that gives me hope for the future, as well as reminds of all the important work ahead.
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Description
In this episode, NHA Communications Coordinator Patrick Shea and Region 1 Program Manager Peter Samuel discuss protecting cultural resource in the coastal Essex County region of Massachusetts, with Essex Heritage Director Annie Harris and Salem Maritime/ Saugus Ironworks NHS Superintendent Paul DePrey.
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