Coastal waters threaten Florida’s historic resources – “These are real threats. They’re no longer academic and off in the future. They’re in real time.”
By Dale White and Dinah Voyles Pulver
7 January 2018
GAINESVILLE, Florida (The Gainesville Sun) – What do St. Augustine’s Castillo de San Marcos and Egmont Key near Tampa have in common? They are two of thousands of Florida’s heritage sites that are vulnerable to rising seas. “Jupiter Lighthouse, Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West, Fort Jefferson and Fort Pickens in Pensacola — all of these places are threatened,” said Clay Henderson, executive director of Stetson University’s Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience.The Castillo de San Marcos withstood two sieges in 330 years and changed hands five times, but its latest invader — the rising Atlantic Ocean — threatens to erode the historic St. Augustine fortress.The coquina shell walls of the oldest masonry fort in the United States once absorbed cannonballs but will be susceptible to the buffetings of the sea.On the other side of the state, Egmont Key was named one of the state’s 11 most endangered places this year by the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation because rising seas threaten to submerge the island. Just outside Tampa Bay in the Gulf of Mexico, the island holds sacred significance for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, as well as the ruins of another Spanish-American era fort, but its elevation is just six feet.”It’s the first project that we’ve placed on our annual endangered list because it’s endangered by sea level rise,” said Clay Henderson, who was president of the trust when the key was added to the list earlier this year.Like the St. Augustine fort and Egmont Key, thousands of Florida’s heritage sites are vulnerable to rising seas, said Henderson, executive director of Stetson University’s Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience. “Jupiter Lighthouse, Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West, Fort Jefferson and Fort Pickens in Pensacola — all of these places are threatened.””When you look at St. Augustine, the oldest city in existence in our country, and it’s flooded twice in the last year, these are real threats,” he said. “They’re no longer academic and off in the future. They’re in real time.” […]Federal scientists say seas in parts of Florida have risen at a rate of about a third of an inch a year over the past decade. Mid-range forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicate seas could rise anywhere from 13 to 39 inches in Florida by 2070 and as much as 72 inches by 2100.Native American burial mounds, antebellum mansions, cemeteries, cracker-era cabins, and even examples of more contemporary but unique-to-Florida architecture could be submerged if they are not somehow salvaged.Not everything will be saved, said Lorrie Muldowney, a trust board member and former head of Sarasota County’s Historical Resources Department. “We’re not going to move everything. We’ll have to make choices.” [more]
