State environmental officials are considering a voluntary buyout program for properties at high risk of repeated coastal flooding.
Relocation of people and infrastructure is one of 10 strategies in a plan to cope with sea-level rise and storm surge. The Office of Coastal Zone Management is expected to finalize the report this summer.
A draft, released in May, recommends the state study a voluntary buyout program within two years and implement it within five years.
Buyouts could protect both people and property, said Bryan McCormack, coastal processes and hazards specialist with the Sea Grant program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Cape Cod Cooperative Extension. Retreating from the coast allows space for sand dunes, beaches, and other natural buffers to rebuild themselves after storm damage.
The state’s plan to conduct a study of buyout options makes sense, he said. But choosing properties to buy will not be easy.
“It’s a very tough conversation around, ‘Which properties do you acquire? Which ones do you not acquire? How do you gauge who needs this the most, and what environments need it the most?’” he said.
The report cites the cost of buyouts as a drawback of the program.
But it warns that if rising seas flood the natural buffer and reach residential neighborhoods, thousands of acres of salt marsh could be lost, along with some public beaches.
