Protecting our coastlines will cost almost as much as it did to build the interstate highway system — but needs to be done in half the time.
It is going to cost the United States at least $400 billion over the next 20 years to protect the nation’s public infrastructure — everything from roads and rail lines to bridges, airports, and sewage treatment systems — to withstand the impacts of sea level rise.
That’s the finding of a new report out Thursday which looks at the cost of moderate sea level rise along the contiguous United States. The price tag is almost as much as it took to build the original interstate highway system, which cost $114 billion at the time ($521 billion when accounting for inflation) over 36 years and now spans over 48,000 miles.
In comparison, the report by Resilient Analytics and the Center for Climate Integrity states that to prepare for sea level rise, more than 50,000 miles of coastal barriers, or seawalls, will need to be constructed along 22 states. Moreover, all of this vital work would need to be done in half the amount of time it took to build the nation’s highway system.
View the complete June 20 article by Kyla Mandel on the ThinkProgress website here.