New Hampshire’s Bipartisan Summit Examines Coastal Flooding

Elected officials from 18 states — representing some 95,000 miles of coastline — gathered in New Hampshire on Saturday, Oct. 24, for a bipartisan summit on coastal flooding.

Some of those who attended the Rising Tides summit in Hampton, New Hampshire, are just starting to evaluate the risks flooding poses to infrastructure, homes and the economy while others have done years of analysis.

The group called for increased state and federal support for such planning and urged presidential candidates to address the issue.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mayor Robert Lister, a Democrat, and Republican state Sen. Nancy Stiles of Hampton said coastal flooding is too important of an issue to be ignored by our most important leaders.

“Our mutual desire is that this summit illustrates how local politics does indeed stop at the water’s edge, and that national partisanship must stop at the shore as well,” they wrote in a statement.

While New Hampshire’s coastline is small, it is home to 25 percent of the state’s workforce and more than $64 billion in insured property, Lister and Stiles noted.

Topics Flood New Hampshire