Will East Haven be swallowed by LI Sound

According to the April 2017 issue of Connecticut Magazine:

“The waters of Long Island Sound are rising.

Projections range from about a foot to more than six feet by the end of the century. At the same time, the state’s landmass has been gradually lowering since the retreat of the ice sheet in the last Ice Age. The result is an advancing sea line that outpaces the national average and will likely cause increased flooding in the short term, and ultimately could reshape shoreline communities and the state’s economy”.

And from our town engineer: “we have yet to adopt an official-resilience plan.” This despite our town having 2.4 miles of coast line, which should make us worry and ponder (or should we?) given the more apparent interest of our elected officials, i.e., sales of town-owned real estate to developers.)

But as we’ve been reading in the news lately the beach parking issue is what’s getting us (politicians) all worked-up, judging from the vociferous ideas we’ve been hearing ranging from the irresponsible (spending $50K) to radical (towing) without first considering the most rudimentary feature that created the problem to begin with. I am talking about order.

Yes Order, for the lack of it fundamentally, is at the root of the problem but let’s put that aside for the moment and consider a real, life-threatening, existential threat.

From Denmark’s Polar Portal website https://twitter.com/greenlandicesmb this tweet:

“Ongoing heatwave in #Greenland - 31st July biggest melt day so far - 56% of the #icesheet had at least 1mm of melt at surface and more than 10 billion tonnes of ice was lost to the ocean by surface melt alone. Another big melt day expected today.” And that alarming reality should more than jar our senses to the dangers confronting us.

Well, ok, perhaps I’m exaggerating here for East Haven will not submerge into the LI Sound and disappear tomorrow or even next year, but clearly we are aware (or should be) that we have problematic (tax-devouring) flooding problems in town and the DC Moore School certainly if anything very manifestly, confirms that.

So the ultimate question is this: should we as a community, expect our government to protect our collective welfare?

But to be fair (to our current elected officials) how could we realistically make that expectation when we continue to be indifferent to our collective needs by viewing mayoral election as a popularity contest, completely divorced from the fundamental vicissitudes of life that makes our lives difficult and which some of us confront daily?

Or to put it more plainly: If we won’t entrust our car to just anyone; why do we entrust the future of our children to someone solely because he is a Democrat or a Republican?

Thank you for reading this and of course I welcome your comments and criticisms.

Oni Sioson for Mayor

2019