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How Tide Gauges Help Track Flooding and Sea Level Rise in Coastal Towns · How To Protect The Ocean

• 1:00:00
  I'm very happy to tell you that we have
• 1:00:01
  Dr. Andrew Taylor back
• 1:00:02
  on the episode today.
• 1:00:04
  He's almost become like a
• 1:00:05
  correspondent on this show.
• 1:00:06
  He's been around so many times this year,
• 1:00:08
  but it's great because he's doing so many
• 1:00:09
  cool projects and emailed me the other
• 1:00:11
  day and he's like, Hey, you know what?
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  You want to talk about tide gauges, put
• 1:00:15
  in a tide gauge in his
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  own town, town of St.
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  Michael's in Maryland to look at how
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  flooding is affected or
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  how often it happens and how
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  they can predict and how they can manage,
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  especially when they
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  look at compared to other
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  tide gauges around the Chesapeake Bay
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  where they're in or
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  just off the Chesapeake Bay
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  where they're in. And so we're going to
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  talk about the process,
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  why he's doing this for
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  his town, you know, the time it takes all
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  that kind of stuff
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  that's going in to doing
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  that so that you can become a local hero
• 1:00:40
  to your community and
• 1:00:42
  do something similar or
• 1:00:43
  just do something that will be helpful
• 1:00:45
  and feel inspired. So
• 1:00:46
  we're going to talk about
• 1:00:47
  that on today's episode of the how to
• 1:00:48
  protect the ocean podcast.
• 1:00:50
  Let's start the show. Hey,
• 1:00:53
  everybody. Welcome back to another
• 1:00:54
  exciting episode of the how
• 1:00:56
  to protect the ocean podcast.
• 1:00:57
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is
• 1:00:58
  the podcast where you
• 1:00:59
  find out what's happening
• 1:00:59
  with the ocean, how you can speak up for
• 1:01:01
  the ocean, what you can
• 1:01:02
  do to live for a better
• 1:01:03
  ocean by taking action. If you haven't
• 1:01:05
  noticed by the last few
• 1:01:06
  episodes, we've been talking
• 1:01:08
  a lot about local heroes, local people
• 1:01:11
  who stand up in their
• 1:01:12
  community and say, you know
• 1:01:13
  what? We need information or we need to
• 1:01:15
  ban single use
• 1:01:16
  plastics or we need to do this
• 1:01:17
  because they're observing stuff in their
• 1:01:19
  communities and saying
• 1:01:20
  something's wrong here or we need
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  to do something in order to predict or in
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  order to better manage our
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  community. And one of those
• 1:01:26
  people, and I know he doesn't like to be
• 1:01:28
  called an ocean hero or a
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  local hero, is Dr. Andrew
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  Thayer. He's a local hero to me. He's an
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  inspiration to me and a lot
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  of our other colleagues and
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  friends that we have in our circles. And
• 1:01:36
  he just does some great
• 1:01:37
  things. He has OpenCTD,
• 1:01:39
  which is his own personal project where
• 1:01:40
  he helps build
• 1:01:42
  instrumentation that is available
• 1:01:43
  for a lot of people. And that is
• 1:01:44
  crowdfunded on his Patreon,
• 1:01:46
  which I'll link to the show
• 1:01:47
  notes if you want to take part in that
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  and support him on
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  that. But he also does a lot
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  of things. He's a consultant. He's a
• 1:01:52
  contractor. He does deep
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  sea ecology. He does a lot of
• 1:01:55
  science communication. He runs Southern
• 1:01:56
  Fried Science. He does a lot of
• 1:01:58
  everything. And I'll put
• 1:02:00
  links to his episodes that he's been on
• 1:02:02
  not only this year, but
• 1:02:03
  before talking about all those
• 1:02:04
  things on this episode, even talked about
• 1:02:06
  D and D this year, running D and D games,
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  Dungeons and Dragons games for forest
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  ecology. So we talk a lot
• 1:02:11
  about things. Andrew's a good
• 1:02:12
  friend of mine. He's always welcome on
• 1:02:14
  this podcast. He's a
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  good friend of the podcast.
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  And today we're talking about him putting
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  a tide gauge into their coastal area to
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  start to detect, you know, all this
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  different stuff that's going on, you
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  know, over a 24 hour period or over a
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  number of like over a year, essentially
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  what he's going to do in this area. And
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  he's going to switch it to a different
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  area within St. Michael's area.
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  Because some areas get flooded and they
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  need to know how often they need to know,
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  you know, what's the implications of
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  that? And they need to know data. They
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  need to get data to do better management.
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  And that's what we're going to be talking
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  about today. And Andrew's always great.
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  So I wanted you to get to know him even
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  more and his project on the tide gauge in
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  St. Michael's Harbor in Maryland. So
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  here's the interview with Dr. Andrew
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  Taylor. Enjoy and I
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  will talk to you after.
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  Hey, Andrew, welcome back to the How to
• 1:02:56
  Protect the Ocean podcast. It seems like
• 1:02:57
  you're a correspondent now, but you are
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  back again. Are you ready
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  to talk about tide gauges?
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  Absolutely. I am
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  ready to talk tide gauges.
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  Love it. I love this. This is awesome
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  because it's very rare that I like I get
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  I get emails from people, you know, a lot
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  of times is get like people who represent
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  guests and be like, hey, would you want
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  this person to be on their guests? A lot
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  of times they miss like completely miss.
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  Obviously you and I know each other.
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  We're good friends. You know, we we we
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  kind of chat on a fairly regular basis
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  through email and
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  through social media stuff.
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  And you email me like, hey, you want to
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  talk about tide gauges? I've got like, I
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  think it's like over a month of day. I'm
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  like, yes, yes, please. Let's let's talk
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  about this because I think it's
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  important. And there's a lot of things I
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  think it's important. This is your
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  project that you've kind of headed up
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  for. And what we just discussed for two
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  years, it's been in the making. And now
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  you finally got data from it and you
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  deployed it this year. You got data and
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  you wanted to share. And I want to share
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  the whole journey. Just what people can
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  do in their own towns for the sake of
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  their own towns, whether they live along, they live in the town.
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  And whether they live along the coastline
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  or they don't live along the coastline.
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  There's things that we need to do to make
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  changes to ensure those changes are done.
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  So I'm looking forward to being able to
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  do that. But Andrew, if people haven't
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  heard of you before, you just let us
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  remind us of who you are and what you do.
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  Absolutely. And thank you for having me
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  back on. One of these days you're going
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  to get sick of me. Never, never, my
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  friend. I think one day we're just going
• 1:04:20
  to have to call at the Andrew and Andrew
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  podcast. I feel like at some point
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  because you're on it so many times. I
• 1:04:25
  love it. But anyway,
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  I'll see you, my friend.
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  So I am Dr. Andrew Thaler. I am a deep
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  sea ecologist. I'm a conservation
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  technologist. I'm an ocean educator. And
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  because I am a man who wears many, many
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  hats, I am also a climate change
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  commissioner for the town of St.
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  Michael's. And that's sort of where this
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  bit of the story begins.
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  So almost five years ago now, more than
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  five years ago, because I'm on my second
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  term, I joined the St. Michael's time
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  climate change commission and it is an
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  infrastructure commission for our town to
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  examine the impacts of chronic sea level
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  rise induced flooding on the town
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  infrastructure, develop strategies for
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  how to mitigate that flooding and then
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  put into practice major infrastructure
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  projects for the most part in order to
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  see our vision of a resilient,
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  town that can survive into the next
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  century. I have a couple questions before
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  you go on. Sorry, with this commission,
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  was this already being put in place
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  before you joined or has already been put
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  in place for you? Or was this something
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  that you tried to push to be put in
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  place? So I was not one of the people
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  campaigning for the creation of the
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  commission that happened before I moved
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  to town, but I was one of the founding
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  commissioners. So I have been on the commission since its inception. But I was on the commission.
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  But I was not part of the
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  push to create the commission.
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  Gotcha. And you are a deep sea ecologist
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  and oceanographer. What made you decide
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  like this is what I want to do? Because a
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  lot of times is what's discussing your
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  you'll discuss it in just a second is,
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  you know, a lot of engineering projects
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  and like, you know, balance and making
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  sure roads are not going to
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  get flooded on a regular basis.
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  What made you decide like, you know what,
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  this is something that I would be good
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  for, like, a lot of people are like, am I
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  really qualified if I if I'm educated in
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  this specific aspect? Like, what made you
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  think, you know what, I could
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  actually do a pretty good job.
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  So, you know, I've done a lot of climate
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  change outreach throughout my career,
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  spanning almost 20 years now. And it
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  became very clear about five years ago
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  that we weren't getting the job done.
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  That this idea that we could use science
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  communication and science outreach to
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  convince lawmakers to convince
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  legislators to make the right decisions
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  regarding climate change wasn't working.
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  Right. And so there's the alternative to
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  if you cannot convince a lawmaker to
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  adopt scientifically sound principles,
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  then the only thing you
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  can do is become a lawmaker.
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  So I set out to figure out where I could
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  be the most impactful in my community and
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  where my specific set of skills, I have a
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  particular set of skills and where my
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  particular set of skills could be the
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  most use to my community.
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  And, you know, I am a deep sea ecologist,
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  but I also have done a lot of coastal
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  work and I've done a lot of sea level
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  rise modeling. And many, many years ago,
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  I ran a little program
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  called Drown Your Town.
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  So I am very familiar with modeling sea
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  level rise and changing communities. And
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  so, you know, I it's not like an open
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  election. It's you get
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  nominated by the town commission.
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  So I put in my application with the
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  commissioners of town and they accepted
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  it. And I joined the town of St.
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  Michael's climate change commission for
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  the inaugural commission.
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  And we have been doing a lot of studies
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  to determine where the critical areas are
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  a lot of grant making and grant writing
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  to get the funds to do more studies
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  because a lot of infrastructure work is
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  just more and more studies.
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  And slowly now beginning to put in the
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  funding to actually do some of the
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  heavier lifts. So we have roads in town
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  that need to be raised because they
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  currently flood at high tide.
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  We have critical areas where major
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  tourist venues are underwater half of the
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  year. And that's obviously not acceptable
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  if you want to have a town that's going
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  to survive into the century.
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  We have a power station, a power
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  substation that handles power
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  transmission for the rest of our
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  peninsula. And in a big storm, the road
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  to that substation is inaccessible.
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  And so we're looking at ways to mitigate
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  the impact on that road. And so it's
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  really, it's a nuts and bolts commission.
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  It's roads. It's stormwater management.
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  It's critical areas. It's putting in
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  reinforced bulkheads or putting in new
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  living shorelines, which we have a living
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  shoreline project that we're in the
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  building phase right now,
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  which is really exciting.
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  So we're actually going to have like a
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  tangible thing. That's not just a report
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  coming up really soon,
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  which is very, very exciting.
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  But part of all of that is you have to
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  know what the ocean is doing around your
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  town. And we have, you know, the
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  Chesapeake Bay is a very well researched
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  area. We have the University of Maryland.
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  We have several other
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  universities. We've got multiple.
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  You know, no one is headquartered on the
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  Chesapeake Bay. Yeah, Maryland, Maryland
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  Department of Natural Resources done us
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  trying to set up a amount of work. But
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  tides are weird. And I don't think we
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  appreciate just how strange tides are,
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  especially in like the Chesapeake Bay is
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  the largest estuary and
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  ecosystem in the continental US.
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  It's the largest water. It might be the
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  largest watershed, not the largest
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  estuary, but I think
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  it's the largest estuary.
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  You know, even bigger than Mississippi.
• 1:09:50
  Yeah, really? Wow, I didn't know that.
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  Estuarian watershed. Estuarian watershed.
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  Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah,
• 1:10:00
  yeah, yeah. I gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Cool.
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  And, you know, it takes 12 hours for a
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  tide to promulgate up the Chesapeake Bay.
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  So if you have high tide in Norfolk,
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  you're going to have another, you know,
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  11 12 hours before you see
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  a high tide in Baltimore.
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  And that changes depending on where you
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  are in the town of St. Michael is not
• 1:10:21
  right in the Chesapeake Bay. We're on the
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  Miles River, which is part of the
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  Chesapeake Bay and is influenced by the
• 1:10:27
  Chesapeake Bay. But there's a lot of
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  weird hydrodynamic phenomena that
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  happened between the tide going up in the
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  ocean and that wave
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  promulgating into our area.
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  And so one of the questions we had is
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  like, so we're dealing with nuisance
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  flooding. We're dealing with high tide
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  flooding. Our mandate is not planning for
• 1:10:47
  the next big hurricane. Our mandate is
• 1:10:49
  dealing with the chronic flooding that
• 1:10:51
  the town has to handle every day.
• 1:10:53
  It's, you know, what I like to say is
• 1:10:54
  we're here to handle the flooding that
• 1:10:58
  you have to live with, not the flooding
• 1:10:59
  that you have to run from.
• 1:11:02
  Because in a big hurricane, the answer
• 1:11:04
  the answer to managing a big hurricane
• 1:11:05
  coming through is get out of town, you
• 1:11:07
  know, go have some fun in the mountains
• 1:11:09
  for the weekend and
• 1:11:10
  then come back and rebuild.
• 1:11:12
  But with the chronic flooding, the
• 1:11:13
  flooding we see every day, you have to be
• 1:11:15
  able to live with it or the town can't
• 1:11:16
  survive. And so one of my very early on
• 1:11:19
  initiatives that I started with the
• 1:11:21
  climate commission is I want to know
• 1:11:23
  what's happening with our
• 1:11:24
  tides in town right now.
• 1:11:25
  We have a tide gauge in Annapolis. We
• 1:11:27
  have a tide gauge in Cambridge. Those are
• 1:11:29
  both very far away from our town. We have
• 1:11:31
  a tide on the other side of the river on
• 1:11:33
  the other side of the
• 1:11:33
  bay on the bay. Sorry.
• 1:11:35
  Yeah, we have a tide gauge in Claiborne,
• 1:11:39
  which is a town slightly north of us that
• 1:11:42
  was installed in such a way that it
• 1:11:43
  bottoms out at low tide. So
• 1:11:45
  you don't get accurate readings.
• 1:11:47
  And so we really pushed to find a
• 1:11:51
  solution that would get us tide readings
• 1:11:53
  in our town. And that was like not
• 1:11:56
  particularly expensive. We didn't, you
• 1:11:58
  know, part of part of working with with
• 1:12:00
  small town government is like, you know,
• 1:12:02
  you can do almost anything you want as
• 1:12:03
  long as it's at no cost to the town.
• 1:12:05
  Yeah.
• 1:12:08
  And so as you know, I have this little
• 1:12:10
  program called the open CTD. The open CTD
• 1:12:14
  is a low cost open source oceanographic
• 1:12:16
  instrument that gives you salinity,
• 1:12:19
  temperature and depth.
• 1:12:22
  And one of the things I was thinking of
• 1:12:24
  doing is, okay, we can measure depth.
• 1:12:27
  Depth is tied if you have a fixed gauge.
• 1:12:30
  So can we convert the open CTD to a long
• 1:12:32
  term fixed mooring and use the data
• 1:12:35
  coming out of that device to then infer
• 1:12:37
  what the tides are
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  doing in our town locally.
• 1:12:41
  And fortunately, I'm very good friends
• 1:12:43
  with the folks at so far ocean who make
• 1:12:45
  those amazing spotter buoys. And they had
• 1:12:48
  opened up a program called the
• 1:12:50
  bristlemouth program, the bristlemouth
• 1:12:52
  pioneer program and bristlemouth is their
• 1:12:54
  attempt at a universal standard connector
• 1:12:57
  for ocean equipment.
• 1:12:58
  So that like, you know, right now, you
• 1:13:01
  know, if I have an open CTD and someone
• 1:13:02
  has like a ysi castaway and someone has
• 1:13:05
  like a big adcp and someone's got a bunch
• 1:13:08
  of other data sans every single one of
• 1:13:10
  those has a different kind of connector.
• 1:13:11
  And if you want those to talk to each
• 1:13:13
  other, it's basically impossible. So the
• 1:13:16
  idea behind bristlemouth is if there's
• 1:13:18
  one universal full ocean capable
• 1:13:19
  connector, that's relatively cheap, that
• 1:13:22
  every device can talk to, then we can
• 1:13:23
  start integrating these ocean systems.
• 1:13:25
  And so the town of St. Michael's was
• 1:13:27
  accepted into the bristlemouth pioneer
• 1:13:29
  program. And then I got to have the joy
• 1:13:32
  of integrating the open CTD with with the
• 1:13:35
  bristlemouth standard. And I don't know
• 1:13:37
  if you know the joke in software
• 1:13:38
  standards, but like, you know, if you go
• 1:13:40
  into a program, you're like, oh, there's
• 1:13:42
  like 15 different language standards, we
• 1:13:44
  should normalize this so that we can like
• 1:13:46
  make it easy for all these different
• 1:13:48
  codes to talk to each other.
• 1:13:49
  Then all of a sudden you have 16
• 1:13:50
  different software standards. And then
• 1:13:52
  the next person comes in is like, oh, we
• 1:13:54
  should normalize this. And then you have
• 1:13:55
  17 different standards. So it took about
• 1:13:58
  a year for me to get the open CTD
• 1:14:01
  integrated with with the spotter buoy.
• 1:14:04
  And then finally, this December, we
• 1:14:07
  deployed our buoy out in St. Michael's
• 1:14:09
  Harbor and began logging the tides. Okay,
• 1:14:11
  so now, so you've, you know, you spent a
• 1:14:13
  year coding this thing to make sure that
• 1:14:15
  it speaks to the open CTD, which is which
• 1:14:18
  is awesome, because that's something that
• 1:14:19
  was necessary to make sure that, you
• 1:14:22
  know, you can get your information in
• 1:14:24
  there, like, you know, from
• 1:14:25
  from the CTD that you had.
• 1:14:27
  But this is a lot of stuff, you know,
• 1:14:30
  like, did the commission know about all
• 1:14:33
  this, these plans, or is this a program
• 1:14:36
  that you looked up and you knew about it,
• 1:14:38
  you know, and then shared it with the
• 1:14:39
  commission? Like, how did it how was this
• 1:14:41
  program made available or
• 1:14:43
  made known to the commission?
• 1:14:45
  So I knew from so far when they put out
• 1:14:48
  the announcement that they were looking
• 1:14:49
  for bristlemouth pioneers. And then
• 1:14:51
  because municipal municipal government is
• 1:14:54
  always about meetings, right? You know,
• 1:14:56
  there, there is a long process of having
• 1:14:58
  meetings and holding meetings. And kind
• 1:15:00
  of the joke I was making with so far is
• 1:15:01
  that I had the hardware ready to go.
• 1:15:03
  Well, well ahead of when we actually
• 1:15:06
  deploy it, but I had to wait for a town
• 1:15:07
  council meeting so that I could then
• 1:15:09
  petition the town for permission to put
• 1:15:12
  this buoy in this particular spot. And
• 1:15:14
  then the town had to vote on where the
• 1:15:15
  buoy would go. And, you know, there's a
• 1:15:17
  municipal process
• 1:15:18
  because we're a community.
• 1:15:19
  So, you know, the coding and the hardware
• 1:15:23
  was maybe not even the most logistically
• 1:15:25
  complicated part of it. It's the getting
• 1:15:27
  people on board and talking to everyone
• 1:15:30
  and then getting, you know, the actual
• 1:15:32
  live feed up on the website. So website.
• 1:15:34
  So part of all this is we launched St.
• 1:15:36
  Michael's flood watch, which is St.
• 1:15:38
  Michael flood watch.com. And it just
• 1:15:40
  redirects to an ArcGIS story map because
• 1:15:42
  as re is great for stuff like that.
• 1:15:44
  The story maps have really have really
• 1:15:46
  taken by a lot of people. I know a lot of
• 1:15:49
  people do that. What's that website
• 1:15:50
  again? Can you just say that again? So
• 1:15:51
  it's st. Michael's flood watch.com and
• 1:15:54
  that's St. Abbreviated just ST.
• 1:15:56
  Yeah, Michael's flood watch. And so on
• 1:15:59
  that website, you see the sea level rise
• 1:16:02
  projections that we're working with as
• 1:16:03
  part of the commission. So when we do all
• 1:16:05
  of our planning, we're planning for five
• 1:16:07
  feet of flooding above mean sea level.
• 1:16:10
  We have a lot of projections about what
• 1:16:12
  that flooding looks like in reality over
• 1:16:15
  the years. So like in 2020, we saw 35 two
• 1:16:19
  foot floods by 2036. We expect to see 118
• 1:16:23
  per tide. So that's, you know, two tides
• 1:16:26
  a day. By 2075, we expect every high tide
• 1:16:30
  to be above two feet.
• 1:16:31
  So that gives you kind of a projection of
• 1:16:34
  what we're really looking for. And it
• 1:16:34
  also emphasizes that sea level rise is a
• 1:16:37
  process. You know, we talk about, oh,
• 1:16:38
  what's it going to look like in 2050 or
• 1:16:41
  2100? But in reality, we should be
• 1:16:43
  talking about like, how much is going to
• 1:16:45
  change over the next five years, over the
• 1:16:47
  next 10 years, you know, what is chronic
• 1:16:49
  flooding going to actually look like to
• 1:16:51
  the people who have to live with it.
• 1:16:53
  And like, how does that impact things
• 1:16:55
  like the businesses that are on the
• 1:16:58
  waterfront there over time? So, you know,
• 1:17:00
  a five foot flood may not be particularly
• 1:17:03
  catastrophic, because we only see it once
• 1:17:05
  or twice in the next 50 years. But, you
• 1:17:09
  know, a four foot, a four foot flood
• 1:17:11
  isn't that much less than five feet. And,
• 1:17:14
  you know, by 2075, we'll be seeing that
• 1:17:17
  every sixth high tide.
• 1:17:19
  So things like that, I think really
• 1:17:22
  matter. And then if you keep going down
• 1:17:23
  the website, you get to the real time
• 1:17:24
  feed from the buoy. And this is where all
• 1:17:26
  the this is real time data. This is
• 1:17:28
  coming directly from our buoy.
• 1:17:30
  Last 24 hours that
• 1:17:31
  I'm reading here, right?
• 1:17:32
  The last 24 hours. And you can see,
• 1:17:34
  unfortunately, if we had done this
• 1:17:36
  yesterday, you would have seen three two
• 1:17:38
  foot floods in a row. So we had three
• 1:17:40
  flood tides in a row over the last week,
• 1:17:42
  which was the first set of flood tides
• 1:17:45
  we've documented with the
• 1:17:46
  buoy since we put it out.
• 1:17:48
  And I just want to clarify, too, when we
• 1:17:50
  talk about flood tides, we're talking a
• 1:17:53
  little bit about the height, but also the
• 1:17:55
  distance that it goes, right? Like how
• 1:17:57
  far in does it go? Like so
• 1:17:59
  you have your regular shoreline.
• 1:18:00
  And if you if people go, I highly
• 1:18:02
  recommend if you're if you're watching
• 1:18:03
  this or you're listening to this, I
• 1:18:05
  highly recommend that you actually it's
• 1:18:07
  easier if you follow along if you go to
• 1:18:10
  say Michael's flood watch.
• 1:18:11
  I'll put the link in the in the show
• 1:18:12
  notes so people can follow along. But
• 1:18:14
  because you see the first picture of I
• 1:18:16
  think was May 9th, it looks like you can
• 1:18:18
  see that there's like bridges that are
• 1:18:20
  pretty much flooded rows
• 1:18:22
  that are pretty much flooded.
• 1:18:23
  And it looks like a typical day. You know
• 1:18:26
  what I mean? Like it's it's kind of it's
• 1:18:29
  it's a little scary to think that this is
• 1:18:31
  a normal thing that happened. So going
• 1:18:33
  back to that when we talk about height.
• 1:18:36
  So when I look at this tide gauge, it's
• 1:18:39
  saying depth from mean sea level, I
• 1:18:41
  assume is MSL. Yes. And, you know, we're
• 1:18:43
  looking at zero to what seems to be
• 1:18:46
  between 1.6 and 1.8 feet,
• 1:18:48
  just a little over 1.6 feet.
• 1:18:50
  And you can actually interact with the
• 1:18:51
  map and you can actually it'll give you
• 1:18:53
  what it was. It's yes, six, seven, I
• 1:18:54
  think was the highest in the last 24
• 1:18:56
  hours, just last 20. And what you'll
• 1:18:58
  notice from this one is that none of the
• 1:18:59
  low tides go below mean sea level.
• 1:19:02
  They don't. So that's crazy. Cool. That's
• 1:19:04
  because we've had a bunch of storms
• 1:19:05
  recently. And that's another issue is
• 1:19:07
  that rainfall highly mediates. Like we
• 1:19:10
  don't have your sides like a tidal
• 1:19:12
  variance around here should be about a
• 1:19:13
  foot. And so, you know, a big rainstorm
• 1:19:16
  can completely change the tidal cycle for
• 1:19:18
  several, several cycles.
• 1:19:21
  Yeah. So when we just go back to that,
• 1:19:23
  when we talk about like the depth, is
• 1:19:26
  that the so you have the mean sea level,
• 1:19:28
  say at zero, like which is where you
• 1:19:30
  would see on average, the sea level. Are
• 1:19:33
  we talking about this is
• 1:19:34
  1.6 feet above above means.
• 1:19:38
  So it's not. But with it going higher,
• 1:19:41
  it'll actually it will also go further up
• 1:19:44
  the coastline. Is that like the like the
• 1:19:46
  further into town and yeah, it goes
• 1:19:48
  further and further into town.
• 1:19:49
  So the higher goes the further goes into
• 1:19:51
  town. Yeah. The other thing I want to
• 1:19:52
  make, I want to note is that St.
• 1:19:56
  Michael's is not necessarily like I was
• 1:19:59
  just looking up a map of St. Michael's
• 1:20:01
  because as much as long as we've known
• 1:20:02
  each other, I've never actually looked
• 1:20:03
  up, you know, where you
• 1:20:05
  actually live within the bay.
• 1:20:07
  Right. It's a it's it seems like it's
• 1:20:10
  protected from the bay itself and from
• 1:20:12
  where the ocean comes in. Almost on the
• 1:20:15
  other side of the land mass that comes
• 1:20:17
  in. So the fact that it's flooding and
• 1:20:20
  it's still protected in a way, you know,
• 1:20:23
  from like actual ways
• 1:20:24
  coming in from the ocean proper.
• 1:20:26
  That's kind of scary too, right? Because
• 1:20:29
  now it's just a matter of the volume of
• 1:20:31
  water filling up into this into the bay
• 1:20:33
  that you're into, like the river that you
• 1:20:35
  go into. It's just sheer volume of coming
• 1:20:38
  up plus rain that comes in from the top.
• 1:20:41
  Does that play a role in how scary this
• 1:20:44
  is for you? Like or for the town?
• 1:20:47
  So yes, no, I wouldn't use the term
• 1:20:48
  scary, right? Because we're looking about
• 1:20:50
  building a resilient community. And one
• 1:20:52
  of the reasons I'm committed to the
• 1:20:53
  climate change commission is because St.
• 1:20:55
  Michael's is actually very well
• 1:20:57
  positioned to be resilient to climate
• 1:20:59
  change. If you look at our flood maps,
• 1:21:01
  it's not, you know, it's got enough
• 1:21:04
  elevation to it that most
• 1:21:06
  of the town isn't flooding.
• 1:21:07
  Right.
• 1:21:08
  It's a lot of the businesses tend to be
• 1:21:10
  the ones that are affected right now. And
• 1:21:12
  of course, that has major implications
• 1:21:13
  for the survivability of the town. But
• 1:21:15
  the town itself is relatively well
• 1:21:17
  protected. It's got great potential for
• 1:21:20
  building resilient infrastructure.
• 1:21:22
  There are communities on the US, on the
• 1:21:24
  on the Maryland Eastern Shore that are,
• 1:21:26
  there's nothing you can do. You're like,
• 1:21:28
  like, they are so low lying. Parts of
• 1:21:30
  them are already below sea level. Like,
• 1:21:32
  there isn't really, there is no
• 1:21:35
  resilience building for some communities.
• 1:21:37
  Some communities are just going to have
• 1:21:38
  to move. St. Michael's is not one of
• 1:21:40
  them. So I you know, I look at all this
• 1:21:42
  stuff and I look at them and it's hopeful
• 1:21:43
  because it's, you know, it's a community
• 1:21:46
  that has the potential to build for
• 1:21:50
  resilient future and it's a
• 1:21:51
  community that's doing that.
• 1:21:53
  So it's a town that decided they wanted a
• 1:21:55
  climate change commission. I think we
• 1:21:56
  were the first town on the Maryland
• 1:21:58
  Eastern Shore to say we want a specific
• 1:22:01
  municipal body that is
• 1:22:02
  there to address climate change.
• 1:22:04
  We have, you know, the topology of the
• 1:22:07
  town is right to build resilient
• 1:22:10
  infrastructure. You can see there's a lot
• 1:22:12
  of towns further down the peninsula from
• 1:22:14
  us that have to you have to go through
• 1:22:15
  St. Michael's to get to.
• 1:22:16
  So, you know, St. Michael's is kind of
• 1:22:18
  the gateway to the rest of the Bay
• 1:22:19
  hundred, which is what our area is
• 1:22:22
  called, because a hundred is a colonial
• 1:22:27
  term for an amount of land that has
• 1:22:31
  enough population that you can raise a
• 1:22:33
  hundred able bodied men for a militia.
• 1:22:36
  Oh, the Maryland Eastern Shore was
• 1:22:38
  separated into hundreds back in the day.
• 1:22:41
  We're we're one of the last areas that
• 1:22:43
  still refers to ourselves as the bay
• 1:22:44
  hundred as the bay
• 1:22:45
  hundred. Okay, interesting.
• 1:22:47
  So that's that's why it's called the bay
• 1:22:49
  hundred. But the rest of the bay hundred
• 1:22:50
  depends on St. Michael's for access. So
• 1:22:52
  if St. Michael's goes down, then a lot of
• 1:22:54
  other communities fail to. So it's a very
• 1:22:56
  kind of critical area to address.
• 1:23:00
  Now, when going through the climate
• 1:23:02
  commission and doing the studies and, you
• 1:23:05
  know, doing a project like this, was
• 1:23:07
  there much resistance to from from other
• 1:23:11
  citizens who maybe are not always for
• 1:23:14
  doing work in climate change?
• 1:23:17
  Or was this, hey, we're actually getting
• 1:23:19
  flooded here. This is something that's
• 1:23:21
  concerning whether we call it what we can
• 1:23:22
  call it whatever we want. This is just
• 1:23:24
  concerning. I'm just curious in terms of
• 1:23:26
  like the feedback that you and the
• 1:23:28
  commission got and the government got.
• 1:23:30
  Yeah. So just to give you some context,
• 1:23:33
  you know, Maryland is a very progressive
• 1:23:35
  state in general. The Maryland Eastern
• 1:23:38
  Shore is generally not. We're sort of the
• 1:23:41
  red district in a sea of blue.
• 1:23:45
  But we're also a coastal community and
• 1:23:47
  we're a community that relies on the
• 1:23:49
  water and, you know, people are not blind
• 1:23:51
  to what's actually
• 1:23:52
  happening in front of them.
• 1:23:54
  So, you know, there are a few
• 1:23:55
  constituents who say, hey, we don't want
• 1:23:57
  to deal with climate change. We don't
• 1:23:59
  want to think about it. For the most
• 1:24:00
  part, we have an incredible amount of
• 1:24:02
  support from the town, from the town
• 1:24:04
  commission and from
• 1:24:05
  the community at large.
• 1:24:07
  And, you know, what I like to say when
• 1:24:09
  people say, all right, well, why do we
• 1:24:10
  need to worry about this is like, look,
• 1:24:11
  you know, my job is not to convince you
• 1:24:13
  that climate change is real. My job is to
• 1:24:15
  make sure that an ambulance can get to
• 1:24:16
  your house at the middle
• 1:24:17
  of high tide on a sunny day.
• 1:24:20
  And right now we had three high tides in
• 1:24:22
  a row where that was not possible. So,
• 1:24:24
  you know, regardless of what your
• 1:24:31
  personal beliefs are regarding the
• 1:24:32
  science of climate change, which climate
• 1:24:34
  change is real and is happening in itself.
• 1:25:00
  And so to get into start a new seems and a filler for the long time starts to happen. And because climate change is you know? I racism is what the future. Something like that to us. Was Whiskey called challenged over a bug
• 1:25:00
  looking at really ELEac's
• 1:25:00
  Why are areas like the people we check wanting to meet run state like freestyle field and then Internalenzie Conway who's also' information, you know, we're looking at
• 1:25:02
  this story map, which
• 1:25:03
  kind of gives us enlightens us in terms
• 1:25:05
  of, you know, what it is
• 1:25:07
  like, I'm looking at, or it
• 1:25:08
  looks like what a what a great
• 1:25:10
  crab and steakhouse that's
• 1:25:11
  pretty much underwater or the
• 1:25:13
  rounded it's underwater. So the crab,
• 1:25:16
  crab and steak, steak,
• 1:25:17
  crab claw, there is a, oh, actually, I
• 1:25:20
  think the picture of
• 1:25:21
  this crab and steak claw,
• 1:25:21
  they've changed the name. But
• 1:25:23
  one of them is a restaurant called the
• 1:25:25
  crab claw. Okay. And
• 1:25:27
  they, at one point, their
• 1:25:29
  front, their lower level was
• 1:25:31
  underwater. So consistently that they
• 1:25:32
  made it like an experience.
• 1:25:35
  So you could go have crabs in the bay,
• 1:25:37
  you know, sit at the picnic
• 1:25:39
  table and the bay would be coming up with
• 1:25:41
  the high tide while you're
• 1:25:42
  eating your crabs and you can just toss
• 1:25:44
  your refuse right into the
• 1:25:45
  water. That's that's adaptation, I guess.
• 1:25:47
  I mean, you know, it's
• 1:25:49
  adaptation, it's resilience hits. Yeah,
• 1:25:51
  it's a declaration that
• 1:25:52
  like, we're acknowledging the problem,
• 1:25:53
  we're going to deal with
• 1:25:54
  it as we can. They are in the
• 1:25:55
  process of raising their lower
• 1:25:57
  deck and doing a whole retrofit to make
• 1:26:00
  it passable again. Yeah,
• 1:26:03
  there were a lot of venues that were
• 1:26:05
  underwater. One of former
• 1:26:08
  climate change commissioner ran one of
• 1:26:11
  the tour boats out of town.
• 1:26:13
  And he did a very good job of keeping
• 1:26:15
  records of how often his
• 1:26:16
  dock was inaccessible. And it went from
• 1:26:19
  in 2010, his dock was
• 1:26:22
  inaccessible because of flooding four
• 1:26:24
  days a year, five days a
• 1:26:25
  year, I think it's back in 2010. Yeah, so
• 1:26:28
  I've got let me make sure I'm
• 1:26:30
  got the right numbers.
• 1:26:32
  Yeah, so in 2010, it was obstructed six
• 1:26:35
  times during the year. And in
• 1:26:37
  2022, his dock was obstructed 44 times.
• 1:26:40
  So these are, you know,
• 1:26:42
  these are business owners who are keeping
• 1:26:44
  track of what's happening
• 1:26:45
  and are noticing that like that impacts
• 1:26:48
  his bottom line that 44 times a
• 1:26:50
  year, customers could
• 1:26:51
  not get to his business.
• 1:26:53
  That's unreal. Now it's kind of
• 1:26:55
  interesting because it's data that
• 1:26:57
  matters to his business. So he's looking
• 1:26:59
  at it. He's trying to figure out ways to
• 1:27:02
  adapt to it to figure out ways to change.
• 1:27:04
  It's really interesting how the story map
• 1:27:06
  is laid out here because you know, you've
• 1:27:08
  got, I think it's like nine different
• 1:27:11
  sites here that are different
• 1:27:12
  streets and talking about how
• 1:27:14
  frequently, you know, they're, they're
• 1:27:16
  underwater and you see the pictures that
• 1:27:18
  come up of them underwater, you know, a
• 1:27:20
  San Domingo Creek, you've got Chester
• 1:27:23
  Park Lane to North Street, so you've got
• 1:27:24
  you've got it like pretty much laid out
• 1:27:26
  of what is what could happen and and the
• 1:27:31
  people who are from St. Michael's have
• 1:27:32
  probably seen this and they probably know
• 1:27:34
  about it's probably a topic of discussion
• 1:27:36
  in terms of roads are out or so forth. So
• 1:27:38
  it becomes really important. Now, the
• 1:27:40
  time going back to the tide gauge in
• 1:27:41
  that, you know, that's an
• 1:27:43
  exciting project to have.
• 1:27:44
  And I think it's really important to get
• 1:27:44
  the data, but obviously data feeds into
• 1:27:47
  better management at the end. So you have
• 1:27:49
  this in there. It's been in there since
• 1:27:50
  December 2024. What do you want or what
• 1:27:54
  are you hoping and what is the commission
• 1:27:55
  hoping to get out of it?
• 1:27:56
  So there's really three key things that
• 1:27:59
  we want to learn from the tide gauge. And
• 1:28:01
  I will say that this is not a permanent
• 1:28:02
  structure. The ultimate goal is to prove
• 1:28:06
  that the town of St. Michael's needs its
• 1:28:08
  own dedicated title station that's
• 1:28:10
  supported by NOAA or the USGS.
• 1:28:12
  And that's that's an expensive
• 1:28:14
  proposition. That's a proposition that
• 1:28:15
  requires a lot of grant making. And so
• 1:28:17
  having that data ahead of time is key to
• 1:28:19
  that. So part of that is demonstrating
• 1:28:21
  that our tides are out of cycle enough
• 1:28:23
  that we need our own tide station.
• 1:28:26
  We want to have documentation of each
• 1:28:28
  flooding event so that we can say as the
• 1:28:31
  years progress like in 2025 we had X
• 1:28:35
  number of two foot floods and an X number
• 1:28:38
  of five foot floods. Hopefully we only
• 1:28:40
  have one but you know, we usually get at
• 1:28:42
  least one five foot flood a year.
• 1:28:45
  So we can actually show the community
• 1:28:47
  like, hey, look, we're tracking this in
• 1:28:49
  real time now, like we've got the data
• 1:28:52
  and we can show the accumulation of more
• 1:28:55
  and more flooding because, you know, the
• 1:28:57
  infrastructure projects we're working on
• 1:28:58
  are not short projects. These all have
• 1:29:01
  five, 10, 15 year time horizons.
• 1:29:03
  And I think one of the big projects we're
• 1:29:04
  working on that's that's going to get a
• 1:29:06
  good bit of resilience to 2050 is
• 1:29:08
  probably a 20 year project. So we'll be
• 1:29:11
  done just in time for 2050. But it's a
• 1:29:14
  major infrastructure build and has a
• 1:29:15
  tremendous amount of potential.
• 1:29:19
  And I think one of the things that we want to know, we want to know how often
• 1:29:20
  the floods are happening and we want to
• 1:29:21
  have those documented. We also want to
• 1:29:23
  know how out of phase St. Michael's is
• 1:29:26
  with the other tide stations in our area
• 1:29:29
  because that has major ramifications for
• 1:29:31
  planning. If we know storm is coming, if
• 1:29:34
  we know there's a big surge, if we know
• 1:29:37
  we're about to get a ton of rainfall, we
• 1:29:40
  are as of now and I haven't done the full
• 1:29:43
  cycle analysis for the data we have.
• 1:29:46
  Because I'm waiting on just getting a few
• 1:29:48
  more months before we do that because
• 1:29:50
  title cycles are also seasonal. But at
• 1:29:54
  the moment, we are anywhere from 20
• 1:29:56
  minutes ahead to 40 minutes behind the
• 1:29:59
  tide station up the bay from us, which
• 1:30:02
  means we're I mean,
• 1:30:03
  that that is an hour range.
• 1:30:05
  That is the difference between saying a
• 1:30:08
  flood is going to arrive at six or flood
• 1:30:10
  is going to arrive at seven. And so
• 1:30:12
  knowing exactly how out of phase we are
• 1:30:14
  with with those other tide stations
• 1:30:16
  really helps for things like emergency
• 1:30:19
  planning. It helps for things like
• 1:30:21
  knowing when to launch your boat.
• 1:30:23
  It helps for things like knowing when to
• 1:30:26
  maintain the buoy because I maintain the
• 1:30:27
  buoy by going in in chest waders. And if
• 1:30:31
  the tide is 1.6 feet above mean sea
• 1:30:33
  level, I am going to be swamped and if
• 1:30:36
  it's 0.4 feet above mean sea
• 1:30:37
  level, I can tend to the buoy.
• 1:30:40
  Yeah, yeah. If it's 1.6 that
• 1:30:41
  you have you have water in your.
• 1:30:49
  So this is super interesting that the
• 1:30:50
  data here helps you make better
• 1:30:53
  management decisions from the commission
• 1:30:54
  sake and from the city
• 1:30:55
  sake or the town sake.
• 1:30:58
  And then are people interested now? Like,
• 1:30:59
  are they looking at the map? Like, are
• 1:31:01
  they looking online? Are
• 1:31:02
  they talking to you about it?
• 1:31:04
  You know, obviously, I know you have kids
• 1:31:05
  programs around it, too. There's a
• 1:31:07
  there's a picture view with and a couple
• 1:31:09
  of adults that with with
• 1:31:10
  like some kids and stuff.
• 1:31:12
  Is this something that people are are
• 1:31:14
  interested in and interested in the data?
• 1:31:16
  Yeah, so the town is very involved.
• 1:31:19
  They're working on getting the tide
• 1:31:21
  charts up on the official town website as
• 1:31:23
  well. Nice. That is also a process
• 1:31:26
  because usable governance is always a
• 1:31:28
  process and process is important.
• 1:31:31
  We do do a lot of work with kids. So the
• 1:31:33
  the St. Michael's Girl Scout troop 799
• 1:31:35
  has been very involved in this process.
• 1:31:38
  They were out there
• 1:31:39
  for the first deployment.
• 1:31:40
  The buoy is actually also a time capsule.
• 1:31:43
  So they all made little bits of art and
• 1:31:45
  wrote letters to the buoy and put it
• 1:31:46
  inside. So when we pull the buoy in a
• 1:31:48
  year, they'll get to see all their stuff.
• 1:31:50
  Oh, that's really hopefully won't be all
• 1:31:51
  soggy. They were they were they were out
• 1:31:54
  there for the deployment. And I will say
• 1:31:56
  that in the true spirit of rogue marine
• 1:32:00
  science, we decided before I realized you
• 1:32:05
  could just walk out in chest waiters.
• 1:32:08
  Yeah.
• 1:32:08
  Because I didn't have a buoy out there to
• 1:32:10
  tell me how deep it was. Right.
• 1:32:13
  We decided to do the initial deployment
• 1:32:15
  in a canoe. Okay. And so all of the the
• 1:32:19
  dads of the scout troop piled into I had
• 1:32:23
  one of those big aluminum grumman commute
• 1:32:24
  canoes loaded up the buoy with 50 pounds
• 1:32:28
  of ballast because that's what's weighing
• 1:32:30
  it down at the bottom.
• 1:32:32
  Right.
• 1:32:32
  And then we paddled out to the middle of
• 1:32:33
  honeymoon lagoon and then proceeded to
• 1:32:36
  completely flip the canoe. Well, all the
• 1:32:39
  girl scouts were watching their dads just
• 1:32:41
  get soaked. And I think that's important.
• 1:32:45
  I think it is important for kids to see
• 1:32:47
  their parents make big
• 1:32:48
  mistakes and laugh it off.
• 1:32:50
  Yeah, 100%. That's fun. That was fun.
• 1:32:54
  There's video online if you can find it.
• 1:32:55
  I think I said it to the tune of Yaketty
• 1:32:57
  Saxe of us doing the buoy deployment and
• 1:33:00
  flipping the canoe at the same time. I'll
• 1:33:02
  send you a link to that
• 1:33:02
  because that is the real story.
• 1:33:04
  That's the real story. You know what?
• 1:33:06
  That might have to be the next clip. Your
• 1:33:07
  clips do well. I feel like that's going
• 1:33:09
  to be the next clip. You know, of you
• 1:33:11
  talking in the background and doing that.
• 1:33:13
  I think that'll be that'll be great.
• 1:33:14
  Now, one thing that's that's always great
• 1:33:18
  about projects like this is that you can
• 1:33:20
  almost duplicate it or do similar studies
• 1:33:23
  elsewhere, not necessarily in your well,
• 1:33:25
  actually, I should ask first, do you plan
• 1:33:27
  on putting more buoys out there or is it
• 1:33:29
  just this one here is going to be the one
• 1:33:30
  that gives you the
• 1:33:31
  information that you need.
• 1:33:34
  Yeah, this is this is my buoy and the
• 1:33:36
  plan is for it to stay out there for a
• 1:33:39
  year. And then we're going to move it to
• 1:33:41
  other priority sites and do similar
• 1:33:43
  analysis at other priority sites.
• 1:33:45
  However, because it is built on the open
• 1:33:47
  CTD, which is 100% open source platform
• 1:33:50
  and is built on the bristlemouth
• 1:33:52
  communication standard, which is 100%
• 1:33:54
  open source communication standard.
• 1:33:58
  So it's very easy to integrate your own
• 1:34:00
  buoy with one of these tide gauges
• 1:34:02
  anywhere that you want on the on the
• 1:34:05
  website. You'll find a link to the GitHub
• 1:34:09
  repository. If you're the kind of person
• 1:34:10
  that likes GitHub repositories. Yeah,
• 1:34:12
  yeah, yeah. And we've got all the source
• 1:34:14
  code there for the the tide gauge itself
• 1:34:18
  for the communication protocol to get it
• 1:34:20
  talking to bristlemouth.
• 1:34:23
  And we have to rebuild some libraries for
• 1:34:25
  the microcontroller that we're using. And
• 1:34:27
  we have the source code up for the tide
• 1:34:29
  chart too. So if you want to implement
• 1:34:31
  this in your own town, it is ready to go.
• 1:34:34
  It is plug and play. I say plug and play.
• 1:34:36
  It is plug and play if you know how to
• 1:34:37
  use a soldering iron. So the opposite of
• 1:34:39
  plug and play. But it is the main
• 1:34:42
  implementation challenges have been
• 1:34:44
  handled. So if you want to do this in
• 1:34:47
  your own town and you have access to a so
• 1:34:50
  far spotter buoy, which is kind of the
• 1:34:51
  limiting factor there because the spotter is not a
• 1:34:52
  factor there because the spotter buoys
• 1:34:53
  aren't particularly cheap, but they're
• 1:34:55
  not super expensive either for a town. We
• 1:34:59
  can really put these anywhere. And the
• 1:35:01
  spotter platform is tough. I mean, I'm
• 1:35:04
  sure you've seen the videos of them
• 1:35:05
  dropping spotter buoys into Hurricane
• 1:35:07
  Helene. Yes. So they are they are
• 1:35:10
  durable. They take a beating up minus
• 1:35:13
  currently very biofouled. So I'm gonna
• 1:35:15
  have to go out this weekend and give this
• 1:35:16
  scrub. But other than that, it is, it is
• 1:35:19
  a robust little little buoy.
• 1:35:22
  And we're hoping that the gauge holds for
• 1:35:24
  the entire year. I may have to go out and
• 1:35:26
  do some repairs because of course I'm
• 1:35:27
  also testing some experimental hardware
• 1:35:29
  with it as well. But of course you are.
• 1:35:31
  Everything is as one as one. Andrew
• 1:35:34
  Thaler does as one does if you're Andrew
• 1:35:37
  Thaler. Yeah, for sure. So this is
• 1:35:40
  interesting that, you know, a couple of
• 1:35:41
  weeks ago I had on the people from the
• 1:35:44
  Center of American American Progress.
• 1:35:46
  You know, a good friend of ours, Angela
• 1:35:47
  Villa Gomez, Dalia Haddia, came on the
• 1:35:51
  podcast, talked about near shore
• 1:35:52
  conservation. And this is really a form
• 1:35:55
  of near shore conservation like looking
• 1:35:56
  at where you live in your local
• 1:35:58
  community, helping lead it, you know,
• 1:36:02
  providing information, providing
• 1:36:03
  connections and your expertise as well as
• 1:36:06
  along with along with other people within
• 1:36:08
  the commission and working with
• 1:36:10
  government. But essentially being like
• 1:36:12
  this, I know you probably don't like
• 1:36:13
  being called this, but like this ocean
• 1:36:14
  hero for that community to just be like, look, I'm gonna have to do this.
• 1:36:15
  I love where people are. It's a tool I set out here to bed, but it's it's a tool I set out. Let's feel good. Anyway, this is the sort of community who I listen to that, here, I happened to be doing this live on the podcast.
• 1:36:44
  They may not have a PhD, they may not
• 1:36:46
  have a master's, they
• 1:36:47
  may not have a degree in
• 1:36:49
  marine biology or any
• 1:36:50
  kind of aquatic biology.
• 1:36:53
  What would you recommend they do to maybe
• 1:36:56
  not take on a
• 1:36:57
  particular project like this
• 1:36:58
  or maybe do take on a particular project,
• 1:36:59
  but kind of lead or help lead these types
• 1:37:03
  of initiatives in their own area, their
• 1:37:05
  own local community?
• 1:37:07
  I mean, you know, the line I've been
• 1:37:08
  saying for a while now
• 1:37:09
  is local government, local
• 1:37:11
  government, local government.
• 1:37:13
  If you care about how your community is
• 1:37:15
  developing, if you care
• 1:37:16
  about the future of your town
• 1:37:19
  or your neighborhood or your city, right
• 1:37:21
  now the best thing you
• 1:37:22
  can do is to figure out
• 1:37:23
  where in the municipal structure of your
• 1:37:25
  government that your
• 1:37:27
  skills and your passions can be
• 1:37:28
  applied and run for positions.
• 1:37:33
  You know, towns have waterways boards,
• 1:37:35
  towns have wetlands
• 1:37:36
  commissions, towns have planning
• 1:37:37
  and zoning commissions.
• 1:37:39
  Most of them don't require a ton of
• 1:37:41
  expertise and a lot of
• 1:37:43
  them you'll go and you'll look
• 1:37:44
  at the people who are actually making
• 1:37:45
  decisions and being like,
• 1:37:46
  how did they end up there?
• 1:37:48
  Yeah.
• 1:37:49
  You know, so finding roles to play in
• 1:37:53
  your local government,
• 1:37:54
  because that's really where
• 1:37:55
  the rubber hits the road
• 1:37:56
  for a lot of these things.
• 1:37:57
  You know, you hear about big federal
• 1:37:59
  initiatives to address climate change.
• 1:38:00
  And when you look at what those actually
• 1:38:03
  entail, those entail
• 1:38:04
  giving grants to states, which
• 1:38:06
  then give grants to counties, which then
• 1:38:08
  give grants to local
• 1:38:08
  projects and local municipalities.
• 1:38:11
  And so getting on the ground in your
• 1:38:12
  local government,
• 1:38:13
  getting involved in your local
• 1:38:14
  community, it doesn't have to be formal
• 1:38:16
  government, it can be kind
• 1:38:17
  of the informal government
• 1:38:18
  as well.
• 1:38:19
  You can join an NGO, you can, you know, I
• 1:38:21
  serve on our county's
• 1:38:22
  library board as well.
• 1:38:24
  So it can be things like that.
• 1:38:25
  But, you know, at this point, at this
• 1:38:28
  moment in history, you
• 1:38:31
  know, the best thing you can
• 1:38:32
  do is get yourself into a position where
• 1:38:34
  you can make decisions.
• 1:38:35
  Yeah.
• 1:38:36
  Yeah, I love it.
• 1:38:37
  I think it's great.
• 1:38:38
  I think it's a perfect
• 1:38:39
  way to end this podcast.
• 1:38:41
  Andrew, this has always
• 1:38:42
  been a pleasure to have you on.
• 1:38:44
  Love how you're taking a lead.
• 1:38:45
  I love how you're helping out your town
• 1:38:46
  and yourself learning
• 1:38:48
  more and more every day.
• 1:38:50
  And I think it's really important,
• 1:38:51
  though, to set up
• 1:38:52
  something like this for a local
• 1:38:54
  action, doing all the work.
• 1:38:56
  I know it doesn't.
• 1:38:57
  It's not as if it's done overnight.
• 1:38:58
  It takes a long time.
• 1:38:59
  It takes a lot of time to dedicate and a
• 1:39:01
  lot of thought process.
• 1:39:02
  And so really do appreciate what you're
• 1:39:03
  doing for for the town of St. Michael's,
• 1:39:05
  but also for our community here on.
• 1:39:09
  I really appreciate it.
• 1:39:10
  And of course, love to have you back on.
• 1:39:13
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:39:14
  I'm sure I'll be back.
• 1:39:18
  Absolutely. Thanks so much.
• 1:39:20
  Thank you.
• 1:39:20
  Thank you, Andrew, for joining me on
• 1:39:22
  today's episode of the How
• 1:39:23
  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 1:39:23
  It was always great to have you on.
• 1:39:26
  Can't wait to have you back, which you
• 1:39:28
  never know might be next week.
• 1:39:28
  I don't know.
• 1:39:30
  Every time he comes up, he's like, you
• 1:39:31
  want to talk about this?
• 1:39:32
  I'm like, absolutely.
• 1:39:33
  I do want to talk about this.
• 1:39:34
  And you can tell he doesn't like being
• 1:39:36
  called Ocean Hero,
• 1:39:37
  but he is a local hero.
• 1:39:39
  He does things because he executes.
• 1:39:41
  That's the one thing that's the
• 1:39:42
  difference between a lot of people.
• 1:39:43
  I was talking to him after we recorded
• 1:39:45
  and I said, hey, you know what?
• 1:39:46
  Like there's all these times where you
• 1:39:48
  can jump on commissions.
• 1:39:49
  You can jump on meetings and local
• 1:39:50
  meetings and government and all this kind
• 1:39:51
  of stuff, even just extra critters stuff
• 1:39:53
  like, hey, we should talk
• 1:39:54
  about this kind of stuff.
• 1:39:55
  And you can talk and talk and talk.
• 1:39:56
  But until you execute, you
• 1:39:57
  don't really get stuff done.
• 1:39:59
  And that happens a lot within our field.
• 1:40:00
  That happens in any field.
• 1:40:02
  Any business or anything like that.
• 1:40:03
  And the fact is, Andrew executes and he
• 1:40:05
  likes to share what he's done and what
• 1:40:07
  he's been able to do and hopefully
• 1:40:08
  inspire you to stand up for your local
• 1:40:10
  community and be like, hey, we need this
• 1:40:12
  either a tide gauge or we need something
• 1:40:14
  else that's important or we need to ban
• 1:40:16
  something or we need to talk to our
• 1:40:17
  people about something.
• 1:40:19
  It's important to feel that inspiration
• 1:40:21
  and to watch other people go through what
• 1:40:23
  they've done and you can learn from their
• 1:40:24
  challenges and how they overcame them and
• 1:40:26
  from their successes
• 1:40:27
  and how they got there.
• 1:40:28
  This was obviously a
• 1:40:29
  long term thing for Andrew.
• 1:40:31
  It's something that took two years to
• 1:40:32
  just put the gauge in the
• 1:40:33
  water and get it all approved.
• 1:40:35
  You know, government, especially
• 1:40:36
  municipal government,
• 1:40:37
  work slow as it should.
• 1:40:38
  That's the way it does.
• 1:40:39
  They make sure they dot their eyes and
• 1:40:41
  cross their T's, but it does take a while
• 1:40:43
  and you have to be patient.
• 1:40:44
  And once you get it, you have to just
• 1:40:45
  continue and be persistent.
• 1:40:47
  And then now you've got data and you've
• 1:40:48
  got this nice story map and you've got
• 1:40:51
  information as great way of communicating
• 1:40:53
  to the local town of St.
• 1:40:54
  Michael's as well as other places.
• 1:40:56
  So let's use this as a model of what you
• 1:40:59
  can do in your own area.
• 1:41:01
  I'd love to hear from you.
• 1:41:13
  Just go to speak up for blue dot com
• 1:41:15
  forward slash contact
• 1:41:16
  and fill out the form.
• 1:41:18
  Let me know what
• 1:41:18
  project you're working on.
• 1:41:26
  That format, it goes
• 1:41:26
  right to my personal email.
• 1:41:27
  I'll answer you back and plan something
• 1:41:29
  if you want to come on the
• 1:41:31
  podcast and talk about it.
• 1:41:32
  Not no worries.
• 1:41:32
  You don't have to just want
• 1:41:33
  to hear about your project.
• 1:41:35
  But I want to thank you, Andrew, again.
• 1:41:37
  And I want to thank
• 1:41:37
  you guys for listening.
• 1:41:38
  This is always great to help support and
• 1:41:40
  projects, but also to help support the
• 1:41:42
  podcast by listening and sharing with
• 1:41:44
  friends and family that you think will
• 1:41:45
  get a lot of value out of this.
• 1:41:47
  So I really do appreciate if you want to
• 1:41:48
  get a hold of me, go to the website,
• 1:41:50
  speak up blue dot com
• 1:41:51
  forward slash contact.
• 1:41:52
  Leave a comment in the YouTube video for
• 1:41:54
  watching this on YouTube.
• 1:41:55
  And if you're listening to this on Apple
• 1:41:56
  podcast or your favorite podcast app,
• 1:41:58
  just hit me up on Instagram
• 1:41:59
  at how to protect the ocean.
• 1:42:00
  That's at how to protect the ocean.
• 1:42:02
  I want to thank you so much for joining
• 1:42:03
  me on today's episode of the how to
• 1:42:04
  protect the ocean podcast
• 1:42:05
  from the true North strong free.
• 1:42:07
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
• 1:42:08
  Have a great day.
• 1:42:09
  We'll talk to you next
• 1:42:09
  time and happy conservation.