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Posted: 05/20/2014 7:34 am EDT Updated: 05/20/2014 10:59 am EDT
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History Under Water: ClimateChange Imperils Historic, CulturalSites
Rising Sea Level, Union of Concerned Scientists, National Monuments, Climate Change, HarrietTubman Underground Railroad National Monument, Harriet Tubman, Climate Impacts, Climate ChangeImpacts, Sea Level Rise
On a bright, unseasonably hot morning in early May, Susan Meredith pushed herkayak off the banks of the Little Blackwater River, a shallow, 15-mile tributaryrunning through Dorchester County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The water, cooland dark, is almost perfectly still, broken only by the occasional leaping fish.
Today, the quiet marshes provide refuge for wildlife -- ospreys, bald eagles, muskrats,the endangered Delmarva fox squirrel. But 160 years ago, it was people who soughtrefuge in these marshes, using the water, grasses, and trees as they fled slavery.Harriet Tubman, herself born into slavery in Dorchester County in the early 1820s, leddozens of African-Americans through this region to freedom in the North as part ofthe Underground Railroad.
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The region remains largely unchanged from Tubman's time, save the paved roads, afew buildings and a distant cell phone tower. Tubman's grandmother, Modesty, livedon a farm across the street from where Meredith launched her kayak. "What you'relooking at is what she looked at," said Meredith, owner, along with her husband, ofBlackwater Paddle and Pedal (http://www.blackwaterpaddleandpedal.com/). "Whatyou're seeing, she saw."
In March 2013, President Barack Obama granted new protections for 11,750 acreshere, with an executive order designating this as the Harriet Tubman UndergroundRailroad National Monument. The state of Maryland is building a new visitor centernot far away, where people will be able to learn about this chapter of Americanhistory.
But sea level rise fueled by climate change threatens this flat, low-lying peninsula. TheTubman site, though one of the newest in the national park system, is also amongthose most at risk from climate change impacts. It's included in a report from theUnion of Concerned Scientists(http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/national-landmarks-at-risk-from-climate-change.html), released Tuesday, that details risksposed by climate change to 30 cultural and historic landmarks across the country.
The sites include the Cesar Chavez National Monument, in California's San JoaquinValley, where the famed Latino labor leader led the United Farm Workers. Recorddroughts imperil the future of agriculture(http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/california-drought-hits-farmers-hardest/2014/02/09/beec5e10-9043-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html)in that area. In southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, climate-fueled wildfiresare threatening ancestral Pueblo sites, in places like Mesa Verde National Park(http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96401) and Bandelier National Monument(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/bandelier-national-monument-new-mexico-fire_n_913170.html).
All along the East Coast, sites like Tubman are imperiled by rising seas and stormsurges. That includes the oldest city in the country, Florida's St. Augustine, which theSpanish settled in 1565. It also includes Jamestown, Virginia. the site of the firstpermanent English settlement in the U.S., which dates back to 1607.
The reason the report highlights these locations, which include both national andstate parks, as well as other cultural and historic sites, is simple, said Adam Markham,director of the Climate Impacts Initiative at Union of Concerned Scientists: "Peoplecare." Regardless of party affiliation, region, or background, parks and historic sitesresonate with Americans -- and you don’t have to look any further than last year'sgovernment shutdown for evidence of that. At the same time, said Markham, "theseare places that people probably will never have associated with climate change."
In Maryland's Dorchester County, Tubman's history dots the landscape. A signpostnotes the location of the Brodess farm, where she was born Araminta Ross around1822. Her first known act of defiance against slavery took place not far from there, ata small general store in Bucktown. As the story is retold in the 2004 biographyHarriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1AN4/ref=pe_385040_117923520_TE_M1T1DP),she sought to protect a fellow slave from an overseer, who threw a lead counter weightthat struck her in the head, causing a wound that was "deep and severe."
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She took the surname Tubman when she married John Tubman, a local free blackman, in 1844. She took the first name of her mother, "Harriet," when she escapedslavery at age 27. But Tubman's story in the region didn't end there. She came backrepeatedly to free family members, including a niece and two brothers.
"It was the love of her family that brought her here," said Meredith as we paddle theriver, looking out at marshes that Tubman might have used to her advantage as sheeluded her would-be captors. "She knew this place like the back of her hand."
Historians estimate Tubman returned to the region around 13 times, and helped atleast 70 others escape to freedom (some accounts say it was as many as 300). It wasthe rich history of the landscape, still largely untouched, that the monumentdesignation seeks to protect.
"There hasn't been a lot of development in that area, so it probably looks as she wouldhave remembered it," said Cherie Butler, superintendent of the Harriet TubmanUnderground Railroad National Monument. "It's important that we preserve it. Herstory is important, and we want visitors to be able to experience that area as Harrietwould have experienced it."
For the National Park Service, climate change "is very much something we're thinkingabout," said Daniel Odess, chief scientist for cultural resources at the park service."We have a lot of assets in harm's way."
The park service doesn't have an estimate of how much climate impacts might cost,said Odess, but there are a lot of areas of concern. That includes looking at museumfacilities in flood plains that might need to be relocated, historic buildings that mightneed to be made more resilient to storms, or changes in things like mold, fungus, ortermites—all of which could affect historic structures.
"We're really just starting to recognize the whole range of kinds of effects that areoccurring," said Odess. At the same time, the National Park Service is already facingan $11 billion backlog in basic maintenance -- and that's without including climate-
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related costs in the future. "One of the challenges we're confronted with, in theseaustere budget times, is how do we set priorities? Where do we put our effort? Whogets to decide?" said Odess.
Because it is so new, planners working on the Tubman site are well aware of the risksof climate change. In this region, the land has long been slowly subsiding due toglacial retreat. But climate change, which causes thermal expansion of the oceansand the melting of glaciers, is making the seas rise much faster than ever. By 2050,the area can expect about 2 feet of sea level rise (http://www.umces.edu/project/sea-level-along-maryland%E2%80%99s-shorelines-could-rise-2-feet-2050-according-new-report), according to a report the University of Maryland Center forEnvironmental Science last year. By 2100, scientists anticipate sea level will rise 3.7feet to 5.7 feet.
Sea level already has risen by one foot in the 20th century, said Donald Boesch,president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and chairof the group that assembled the sea level rise report. That is much faster than in the19th century, when sea levels were relatively stable. "It is a quite dramatic change inreally a short period of time in human history," Boesch said. "If you put it in thecontext of what it was like when Harriet Tubman was alive, it is something that isreally unprecedented."
The implications here are severe. "Even the areas that aren't wetlands are not veryhigh above sea level," said Boesch. "A small amount of sea level rise would result in alarge amount of inundation, because the land is so flat."
The Tubman site includes areas owned by the National Park Service. A portion is partof the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and managed by the U.S. Fish & WildlifeService, and another piece is owned by the state. The state is in charge of the visitor'scenter, and earlier this month announced a $13.9 million contract(http://www.cecildaily.com/news/state_news/article_b3bfb0bf-338b-50b0-92f2-b029b01491e5.html) to begin construction. Officials said they expect it to becompleted in early 2016.
Jordan Loran, director of engineering and construction for the Maryland Departmentof Natural Resources, said the visitor center location will be built outside of the 50-year floodplain. And the base of the center will be constructed two feet above the 100-year floodplain, to make it even safer. "Obviously that area it is a low area, butbecause of the historical significance of the landscape, and being close to the story ofHarriet Tubman, we needed to be in that area," said Loran.
Advocates had fought to get the landscape protected for years, said Alan Spears,government affairs cultural resources director at the National Parks ConservationAssociation. "It was a decades-long effort to honor Harriet Tubman," said Spears. "Sothe idea that in 40 years much of that could be underwater is a pretty reprehensiblenotion."
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Of course, there are best-case and worse-case scenarios for future sea level rise, largelybased on whether the world's nations take meaningful action to curb climate-changing emissions. Whether we're on the high end of the projected rise by 2100 orthe low end remains to be seen -– and that could make all the difference for a site likethe Tubman monument.
"We're hoping people don’t have to rent scuba gear to enjoy the resource," saidSpears.
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