hi everyone it's good to see you thank you for joining us on managing your wells i'm your host deborah fraser welcome to our program the goal of our program is to bring timely and relevant information on wealth management topics to you our audience and to interview guests who can help impart knowledge that will help you make better and more informed decisions around managing your wealth our topic for discussion today is rising sea levels and extreme storms and we look at some of the economic threats and some of the opportunities that are presented by the rise in sea levels and our interview guess is the honorable w and bill is the founder and executive director of the national institute for coastal and harpo infrastructure ideal welcome to managing your wealth well it's a pleasure to be here deborah and thank you for inviting me on your show great thank you and you know it's a pleasure for me to have the here so bill graduated from yale university here in his jersey doctorate from boston universe versity and his master's in planning and ministration from harvard he also served as a massachusetts state senator for six years and he has a received b n of the david b still own award which is an award given for people who have distinguished themselves and senator john can carry and build this famous for foul and the law through because the cleanup of the boston harbor which went from one of the most hazardous and dirtiest waterways in our high expectations of living in princeton and those expectations have been exceeded it's just a fantastic community one of energy on a diversity a tremendous place to live in to bring up a  family the reason we came here was actually thought more was school we have a son that has some learning issues and we had worked all around the country the west coast south new york city and around and the law school princeton is not only a unique school but blackboard that just doesn't happen in education and the second is by developing unique evaluation testing methods she's been successful in customizing education to how children who weren't right  and very unique institutions what brought us here but the benefits of being here are fantastic and while in just a quick note i know you're having a great fundraiser on the twenty ninth of this month i believe it is if you like to shop school big event so bill writes in sea levels are if you are a major concern to our country the thermal expansion of the ocean water has led to unprecedented increasing levels of water around our coast and our harbored and the sea level in the north east is actually much higher than the global average so how did information like this leads you to create your institute and tell us what the national institute for coast and harbor infrastructure let me give you a little environment and in energy and in planning in economic development but it wasn't until late in the year of two thousand and twelve in the fall of two thousand and twelve that i had my personal pick for me about how serious this was my wife and i own two antique floating light ships and we had one bought in try back or just before sandy hit and we took the ship out to  two during the storm but it was live and yes this is this is our light ship and so we took it off for the strong but it was coming and the ship was built for a hundred fifty mile an hour winds one hundred foot waves so it was no problem for us the itself was no problem we were the second ship however allowed back into the port of new york and we came back to pier twenty five right in the financial district right in tribeca on the hudson river and that was an epiphany to see the financial capital of the world on its knees then drove back to princeton after we dock the ship and to see gas lines like i hadn't seen since the impossible days in the early seventy's and then to go for two weeks without power in princeton and then to have to fight to get the fifty billion dollars to assist us in the post sandy response and to see how that when he was spent and there was spent in a repair addressing the challenges and the economic opportunities are rising from this triple threat of rising sea levels extreme storms and aging infrastructure and we have three things we're trying to do with nature one we want to change federal policy federal policy is a policy based on again react and repeat here we had katrina we had sandy before that we had wilmer we had irene and each one was viewed as a individual discrete emergency when they should have been viewed as symptoms of a lauch in seriously growing issue for this country which is rising sea levels and extreme storms and so we have to change federal policy from react and repair to to plan and in past we have to have single federal agency leadership because the good news is there a lot of programs in washington dealing with the some forty odd programs the bad news it's a forty yard programs in cities and states don't have any place to really touch base with the third thing is we need funding for this and an order of magnitude of of the federal highway system ok the thumb of the well let's take a look first before i ask you about the economic impact what general accounting office statistics and on a variety of other statistics that the government has maintained and there's a lot of talk today in terms of the impact on individual wealth and the club to wealth of cost side even things like social security and the unfunded gap in social security while the unfunded gap resiliency gap and that's the gap between what we have done to prepare for rising sea levels extreme storms and aging infrastructure and the damages we will induct paying as a result of these three phenomenon and that gap is lodge and we believe then the social security gap it's somewhere around five trillion for the federal government and three trillion for the states we need to address that gap and we need to do it quickly or it's going to have devastating impact on our national connery and on national security so they find that we're still in thing when you talk about the coast coast the coast and the harbors what's happening in relation to that really recently and see is often applied to infrastructure and physical structures what is the capability of a structure or a facility to withstand in this case rising sea levels and extreme storms but it goes beyond that it goes to the ability of communities to withstand this you lose buildings you lose coastal waterfront you lose tax base when you lose tax base the taxes go up for everyone else and then you have real economic pressure on the citizens of those communities businesses have resiliency issues and people as a people we have resiliency issues and you can see shore and maybe that that house had a a seventy percent mortgage or if the value that house is now fifty percent they are underwater as well as the house originally being underwater and you don't have to wait to rising sea because right now the insurance companies and the federal government have become aware of these phenomenon and you're seeing the increased risk today the risk of tomorrow reflected today in your insurance bills i had one constituent back in my district in massachusetts that after a storm in massachusetts three years ago received a sixty five thousand dollar insurance bill for their coastal business sixty five thousand dollars it had been five thousand before this one so we occurrence if you talk to scientists today people people talk about rising sea levels and how high they're going to be for a scientist to say that the sea levels are rising to a certain level they have to be ninety five percent certain before they can fix that level ninety five percent certain how many of us have been ninety five percent certain about anything if we were we probably never would have gotten married or  just don't have that how we were millions of dollars in the stock market exactly exactly so you know when you talk about what's really going to happen what the scientists tell me is that today's hundred year storm in two thousand fifty only thirty five years from now will be the annual storm by two thousand one hundred it will be the in you will high tide there are some areas of the country where this is happening already  facts show is that the ten worst storms ever in terms of fiscal losses have occurred since two thousand right in the last fifteen years that's not mumbojumbo that's hard money statistics and those of people losing their money and one of the problems we have the federal government is in one thousand fifties insurable losses were covered ten percent by the federal government on storms such as this recently it's up to ninety percent that's unsustainable we've got to talk about economic planning and public policy and private decision making i know you already mention react and repair and provide dedicated infrastructure investment revenue what does that mean nietzsche is asking the country to do when i say it's a coalition of municipalities individuals universities nonprofits and businesses that have become aware of this and have come together to ask for this i to re imagine the coastline of the united states what we have to do is we have to protect trillions of dollars of investment along the coastline we then have to protect natural resources as well and as importantly we to view this as an economic opportunity to invest in state of the infrastructure so that we end up with a national coastline that is systemic that is plain and so we have a national coastal infrastructure system very much like the national highway system was planned and for the same reasons if you're sitting out there as a business think about the value that a business achieved in the eight hundred sweyn they built their businesses at railroad stops across the country think about the value that businesses have achieved in the sixty's and seventy's and eighty's by building their businesses along off ramps for the federal highway system we're going to be reinventing the coastline of this country and there's a huge self interest for individuals and businesses to get involved in this process as we build this infrastructure because areas can benefit tremendously economically from the infrastructure investments that are going to be made really starting now and for the next thirty or forty years i can give a very really good example of what the second nomic opportunity is all about you mentioned that i was involved in the cleanup of boston i was going to ask you  world so that was a success but there was an unintended success as well when this this system serves forty one cities and towns in massachusetts including boston and other major cities and what we we sought to do is clean up the harbor by building a dance sewer treatment system when the hopper got cleaned up what happened something very unintended a free point nine billion dollar investment in the system resulted in construction of thirty nine billion dollars worth worth of new real estate construction around the harbor area that not only was the investor me of the economic investment real estate development and all the jobs that entailed but all of the jobs that brought to the area all of the businesses that came to the area to serve the people working and living in those buildings and there's been an economic resonance renaissance excuse me around the harbor as a result of this investment in coastal infrastructure we make similar investments in coastal infrastructure around this country and we are going to do something that we have had a tough time doing and that is keeping pace with the growth and development  globally of such countries as china as other countries in the mideast countries in europe other countries around the world who have invested in infrastructure as an engine of economic opportunity for individual wealth and corporate business wealth as well as national wealth we have not made that investment and we're lagging behind we make those investments and you're going to see morning in america you're going to see a tremendous economic growth just like happened when we built the piers in of the sixteen hundreds the total worlds and toll bridge of the seventeen hundreds the really the canals of the eight hundred the federal highway system of the fifty's and by the way republican president president eisenhower was the one that initiated the federal highway system in the fifty's and did it for economic development reasons and national defense reasons same reason we have to do this with our coastal infrastructure system and not only our coast damper structure our infrastructure period yes it's crumbling and we see evidence of it in all over in so many ways i want to go back just for a second when you were talking about things that we could do to build up our coastal sure compared to what the dead already done you know when katrina happened for us it was a female emergency a disaster will be if situation and we went into that mode we didn't do it very well we're going to walk from that to where a little better now but we treat it as a individual disaster fifty years ago or a sixty years ago in the hall and there was a major storm the one nine hundred fifty s they lost thousands of lives and they set up something called the the water commission the delta works and that commission came up with a long term plan to keep the lights on and keep people speak draw and it worked it has been not only has it protected holland and the netherlands but it has been a engine of economic opportunity for that country when katrina hit the dutch took it far more seriously than united states took and they we can being this commission they said this is a new reality this is a new day we've got to address this and so now they have come up with a whole new strategy for dealing with rising sea levels and extreme storms in this country there's a lot of talk about retreat from the sea well if the dutch retreated from the sea they'd be in and in germany and have tried that before that didn't really work so so they are intent on living with water and creating this coastal infrastructure system we need to fall their example we need to do the same and they have great technology and great experience at it we have a lot of great technology experience in this country we're building search berries and in the soviet union in one of the flies i was looking at earlier and it had to weigh out to sharks in the water and one had people calculations on and he said and they're with a little island with a human being sitting on the island who was you know he was deserted he was lost on the island and they had their calculations that they estimated in two more years if they display this is going to take them and they could just walk up and they don't have to worry about swimming over anymore because the  that bad is absolutely you know that's true with you know one of the recipients of the award i got the david b stone award is the president of a nation in the south pacific he was just given this ward three years ago i think and he was given the award because he has come out and said my country will be gone my country is going to be gone if we don't do something it will be gone it may be gone anyway that's not limited to the south pacific the governor of louisiana went out to go fishing one day a few years ago and the place he'd gone fishing to always life wasn't there that's because it always ienner in the delta ruses so much land in the delta that last year they lost twenty eight named places in the mississippi delta gone nice to place named places they'd was a football field size of earth every fifty three seconds in the delta it's because of rising sea levels and s so when you mention that the that we have infrastructure needs around the country we do and the reason we're focusing on the coastal infrastructure issues because in states like new jersey it's absolutely vital sixty percent of our population lives within a coastal county or coming next to the critical coastal county ninety five percent of everything we use in this country comes in by water so our khana be depends on our ability to function and we know from sandy we wiped out three international airports we wiped out the ports we wiped out vital functions and here and almost came with a foot of losing in the south bronx the food distribution system to twenty two million people and we are no stronger today than we were then and we caused an unexpected migration of people up into the center of the country into the northern part of the country very similar to what's happening in some of the more in turn torn country thin in the middle east and migration happening for different reasons but regardless it's fourth migration and it has an impact on people and their lives and the economy and society and yet it's something to pay attention to you can see that already in some areas of the country in norfolk virginia the strong where is the largest people that are on those ships and that harbor cannot get to a hospital cannot get to their school they have a serious problem they're trying to deal and that's a serious national defense issue and and well that that brings me to one  policies that need to be enacted require leadership at every level of government right now the first responders on these issues a mayor is and city councillors and freeholders and people that have to deal with the issue of saving their neighbors lives and saving their neighbor's property and they stretch from here up to vermont from obvious was slainte by irene and watt and had tremendous flooding so the local respond  the city and state officials are the ones that have to drive this policy sadly there is very little leadership in congress on this issue of i must say for the first time i was after they met with congressman jolly when he e state officials communities and businesses have to join in to change it to create the political will to back up these leaders so that we can meet our responsibilities and move this forward so just one or two points i know you'd say that we are up to the talent show one or two points because i want to ask you about something else before our time and we only have a few more minutes what are some of the things that regular local residents can do to help move this well it's very it this is a group locally called sea change that's led by several really really incredible leaders on this one as kathleen begins and they are holding in their homes and in other venues monthly meetings of their neighbors of others and they're bringing in experts that come into their homes and talk to twenty or thirty people about what's going on we have to educate and inform people then you have to sit back and you have to say how does this really affect me how is it going to affect well it can affect your stock portfolios one of the biggest changes is going to happen has got generally except except at accounting principles when they stop putting on the compan so you've got to study your stock portfolios talk to your broke it's make sure you understand and they understand the impacts of this but also look at this as something that's going to be changed from the grassroots up you've got to talk to people locally about planning and investment in infrastructure that's going to make the difference as to whether or not we we confront these issues and benefit from them with new investments that have multiple benefit on fish or uses or whether we're caught off god again and again and we continue to whose lives and property eventually eroded away in figurative way national economy and if someone wanted to believe he had it on your i don't see it here if someone wanted to contact you contact need t about different steps they could take how would they contact you well they can always call me personally six one seven two one six seven seven one or they can log on to nicci dot org and begin that process and through him that can reach me as well we have some great people involved in the great leaders we have a tremendous board that includes a former f a a administrat tremendous board and we're moving forward but we need additional help additional resources and nothing happens i believe in this country without that we do ship a business we need the business community involved figuring out how they can benefit from this  moving forward with individuals ok will we have thirty seconds left and i know you have a month for the city and i understand that your love for the sea has gone all the way back to your father's love for the  important to of leading us into the future and then my ship represents the most noble of maritime traditions the life saving tradition and so we have a dog to peer twenty five i will be open to the public next summer with the museum out of facts it's open year round as a venue for catered events and we even take people over night off to an anchor off the statue of liberty but the issue is  replaced by police that blink and beep there is a time where the average individual put their lives on the line for other citizens groups of these white ships and we have to think about that not just calling a white ship in a military organization we have to think about what our intergenerational responsibility is for our children and if we do that and hopefully the much it will remind us of that we'll be successful in addressing these new realities we face when we do have to go in there bill and i'll be happy to