The former mayor of St. Andrews, a town hard-hit in recent years by severe weather, has cautioned the provincial climate change committee that tough times lay ahead with sea levels continuing to rise and the number and intensity of storms increasing.
“In last six years since 2010 we’ve seen a number of things change and change dramatically in the St. Andrews area,” says Stan Choptiany, delivering the presentation during a public hearing in front of the committee in Saint John. “The climate change information…indicates we are headed for difficult times.”
The campground in coastal St. Andrews, which generates close to $500-million dollars a year, has been flooded more than once.
“Our predictions are that if sea level rise goes the way it is, that that will be underwater every high tide in the future,” Choptiany says.
Current mayor of the town Doug Naish has told the committee that if there are known susceptible pieces of land then they should prevent people from building on them. He says one of his concerns in his position is selling the idea that adapting to climate change is important to everyone in the community.
“Even those people whose houses had seaweed on them in 2010, if you went there today the house looks fine and most of those people don’t want to move and are happy that they paid way too much money for a waterfront lot.”
He says if they get flooded again, they can just apply for a provincial relief program to fix the damage.
Naish says they need provincial leadership when it comes to changing the municipal plan to include a climate change lens.
