Climate change has caused sea level rise, flooding and erosion along the coast of Maine, leading to a trend of coastal residents erecting or repairing stone walls.
Blasts from quarries in Maine subject their neighbors to supersonic shockwaves over a dozen times a year, which create plumes of dust and can potentially damage homes. Hundreds more homes may soon be in range of the shockwaves: the number of permits to develop new quarries have more than tripled over the past five years compared to the prior decade, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, and some quarry owners are looking to expand ones already built.
Climate change is at least partially to blame for Maine’s booming quarry industry. More and more coastal property owners are erecting stone walls, or repairing pre-existing ones, to protect against sea level rise, flooding and erosion, Emmett Gartner writes for Inside Climate News.
“There are few state regulations on quarries in Maine, critics say, and following the recent surge, more and more towns are considering local moratoriums on new quarries, strengthened ordinances that greatly restrict the activity of existing ones, and even local restrictions on new rock sea walls,” Inside Climate News reports.
Read the full story: The Winners and Losers of Maine’s Race to Armor Its Shoreline Against Climate Change
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