How is Olympia going to tackle and pay for sea level rise response in 2024 and beyond?

The City of Olympia and its partners have made progress on several initiatives to respond to impending sea level rise that could leave parts of downtown underwater in the future, but the work is far from complete.

Pamela Braff, the city’s Climate Program manager, outlined the 2024 work plan and budget for the Sea Level Rise Response Collaborative earlier this month, and both were unanimously approved by the collaborative’s executive committee. It includes continuing work from 2023, and a request of $180,000 to make it happen.

Braff said one of the three goals includes establishing a public financing ad hoc committee to research ways to bring in more funding.

Research to come

The second goal is to continue monitoring for a land subsidence survey. James Sommer, manager of the Port of Olympia’s Capital Assets Program, said the port is taking on the survey, which will use satellite imaging to determine how much the ground in downtown is moving due to sea level rise.

He said the city is planning to partner with 3vGeomatics, a Vancouver company that was used in Seattle during the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project to measure how much the ground was being moved by Big Bertha, which was at the time the world’s largest boring machine.

“Essentially, what we’re hoping to gain by that is, we know that the (downtown) peninsula and the earth around it is moving,” Sommer said. “And so confounding with the sea level rise, we’re trying to get an understanding of how fast or how slow that ground is moving. If it’s going down, obviously, that is going to leave us more vulnerable to the sea level rise.”

Sommer said the city is working on a three-year timeline with the company to gather data in order to get a wide range of results, which will lead to a clearer picture of the effects of sea level rise in Olympia.

The third goal is to complete the third phase of a groundwater study. Wendy Steffensen, environmental project manager for LOTT Clean Water Alliance, said the purpose is to assess how sea level rise could affect groundwater elevations and utilities and how those effects could be alleviated.

She said the city already has a very high groundwater table, higher than the surface water level in Capitol Lake and Budd Inlet, which means flooding is already a problem. And future sea level rise will only make it harder to create shoreline barriers.

Steffensen said the city’s response plan proposes building sea walls with elevated berms and boardwalks to both protect the city and make it a place people will want to visit. But before any construction happens, the city needs to do more measuring.

She said the city still needs to measure the salinity of the 12 wells located along the shoreline. They need to be measured both during low tide and high tide to gather initial tidal influence data, she said. Braff said a lot of this measuring will take place during the wet winter and spring seasons.

Response Collaborative Chair Dani Madrone said she has concerns about the artesian well downtown if there’s going to be more intense flooding in the future.

“I’ve got old pipes in my house, so I get my water downtown at the artesian well, and part of me is wondering if that’s going to go salty on me at some point,” Madrone said.

She said the well is a popular gathering place and many people get their water there. She said the city should verify if there are going to be impacts to the well, and if so, there would likely be more community interest in the topic of sea level rise.

Steffensen said the city has an online model it will use to evaluate groundwater rise due to sea level rise. She said the model allows them to plug in a level of sea rise, such as 12 inches, and see what that would do to downtown. It’s another tool that will allow the city to accurately depict the problem and address it.

She said filling those information gaps will happen through March 2024, and the hope is to have a final report on sea level rise and the appropriate response by October of that year.

Braff said a new thing that’s being requested in the 2024 budget is funding for administrative support provided by City of Olympia staff. She said this includes handling meeting logistics and technical support, as well as grant writing for more funding opportunities.

Funding for these initiatives totals $180,000 for 2024, Braff said. Olympia is responsible for 50%, or $90,000, and LOTT and the Port of Olympia are responsible for 25%, or $45,000, each.

Climate Resilience funding

Braff said the city is still looking for more funding opportunities, including federal, state and private grants, and potential legislative action. The ad hoc committee may also research the viability of a new taxing district to bring in more money.

And Braff said the city is hoping to be awarded a grant through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Resilience Regional Challenge to further its work. She said $575 million was made available for projects that build up coastal communities’ resilience to extreme weather events.

She said the focus of the program is on collaborative approaches to these challenges, and there’s a project in our region that matches almost perfectly: Restoration of the Deschutes Estuary, which has five jurisdictions involved — the state Department of Enterprise Services, Olympia, the Squaxin Island Tribe, LOTT, and the Port of Olympia.

Braff said the jurisdictions already submitted a letter of intent and are hoping to be invited to submit a full grant application.

The funds are split into two different categories, one ultimately for establishing a collaborative, and the other for implementing adaptation actions. Braff said the city is going for the latter, since a collaborative has already been formed, and the city is asking for the full $75 million available to 15 applicants each.

Braff said the jurisdictions included a graphic of projects they plan to tackle from the Port of Olympia, up through the Capitol Campus. Projects include finishing the restoration design and permitting schedule, and some habitat restoration prior to removal of the 5th Avenue dam.

Another aspect of the project is raising much of the land around Capitol Lake and Percival Landing and planting native vegetation. Raised planters and flood gates would also be installed to keep water at bay, and the city would buy vulnerable waterfront properties to restore and protect them.

Braff said the city may also need to analyze its combined stormwater and sewer system to see if they need to construct more peak flow management systems. They may also look at the costs and benefits of separating portions of the combined system.

Lastly, Braff said they’re asking for funding for three full-time positions to get this work implemented. The positions would be in place for five years. She said the jurisdictions are hoping to hear back on the grant proposal within the next month or so.

Thurston County Commissioner Tye Menser said during the meeting the grant opportunity is the most important thing the jurisdictions could be going for, and that it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation.

“Whatever the county can do, whatever anyone needs to do to strengthen the application, please, you know, all out effort, because this could be game changing,” Menser said.