Kevin Mulligan, comissioner of public works, examines the Long Beach...

Kevin Mulligan, comissioner of public works, examines the Long Beach canal bulkhead project. The city is replacing old bulkheads to meet revised flood elevations in a new Nassau flood map. Credit: Danielle Finkelstein

Nobody wants to be forced to pay for thousands of dollars in additional insurance on their homes. Fighting such requirements, especially when it's the government imposing them, is a natural, even instinctive, response.

But when it comes to the Nassau County flood maps, residents battling the Federal Emergency Management Agency - to keep property out of a high-risk flood zone and money in their pockets - lack the science to back up that instinct.

A survey of much of Long Island's coastline conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers indicates these properties are in danger of flooding. The updated modeling and a modernized method of evaluating the data have driven the projected flood elevation up in some places and down in others. And that's left many homeowners, particularly in Nassau, angry.

Only the south shore of Suffolk County was surveyed in detail for the study. As many as 25,000 properties in Nassau were added to the flood zone. Owners, who could be forced to pay annual flood insurance rates as high as $3,000 at the end of a two-year transition period, are using the Suffolk-only analysis to fight the new classification.

FEMA says the study is sufficient to predict flooding in Nassau as well. It decided not to have the Corps survey Nassau's shores because of the additional $1 million it would have cost.

In response to the uproar, 100 land elevations were spot-checked in Nassau, and all of them fell well within the range FEMA would have predicted.

Now some Nassau homeowners are demanding a new study, based largely on the fact that properties which have never flooded in their lifetimes are in the floodplain and the projected flood line has been elevated so dramatically in some areas.

But flooding in recent memory can't determine 100-year flood marks, which is what the zones are based on.

And the world is changing. A study released late last year by the state Sea Level Rise Task Force determined that the water in New York Harbor has risen 15 inches since 1850 and four to six inches since 1960. The study also projected a potential sea rise in parts of New York State by as much as four feet over the next 70 years.

That means our sense of what will and won't flood, based on past experience, doesn't mean much anymore.

Given recent climate patterns and rising oceans, these homeowners are likely to see their odds of flooding increase. The science says they are vulnerable to flooding now.

The shoreline and topography of Nassau and Suffolk oceanfront just don't vary that significantly east to west in this targeted area. The idea that they would experience notably different storm surge and flooding patterns on one side of the county line than the other is likely untrue.

The desire of Nassau property owners to avoid paying the rates associated with being in a high-risk flood zone is completely understandable. It's just not justified.

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