FOR OVER 50 years Lenny Linquata has owned a stretch of harbor and land on the waterfront where he runs the Gloucester House restaurant, the 7 Seas Whale Watch, and a charter boat company. He inherited it from his family, which, he said, has been living in the area for over 100 years.  

One to three times a year, the parking lot that sits in between the businesses floods. The businesses used to as well, but over the past 20 years, Linquata has done several renovations to raise the elevation of his businesses.  

“We do it because of need and because of anticipation,” he said. “Obviously we can see the water level rise.” 

Linquata, like many other waterfront businesses and homeowners, has been dealing with damaging coastal storms that result in property loss and flooding.   

The state has identified the entire coastline as an “at risk” area for coastal flooding and storm surges. And, about a fifth of residential land in Massachusetts is in a Federal Emergency Management Agency designated flood plain.  

As extreme precipitation increases in the Northeast, flooding both along the coast and inland is threatening the safety of residents across the states and becoming more costly. In July 2023, Vermont experienced near-record flash and river flooding that resulted in two deaths and almost $100 million in damage. In Massachusetts, severe flooding caused damage in Worcester and Bristol counties, which received more than $7 million from FEMA. 

According to the state’s 2023 ResilientMass Plan, Massachusetts experiences a substantial flood event once every three years.  

Flooding is expensive for both individuals and the government– as critical infrastructure including schools, hospitals, highways, and utilities find themselves increasingly located in flood plains. On average, FEMA has spent $46 billion a year on flood damage over the last decade. Massachusetts estimates the cost of annual flood damage will increase to $9.3 million by 2030.  

The threat of flooding has put Linquata and his businesses in a unique situation. He needs to have his buildings, such as the one from which he runs his harborside restaurant, to be high enough to avoid flooding, but also needs to have some of them, like his charter boat and whale watching businesses, to be low enough to the water for accessibility.  

“Our facilities have to be mostly hanging over the water, and they have to be workable enough that they can’t be built so high out of the water,” he said. “We attempt to keep raising them out of the flood plain.” 

Thus far this plan has worked for him. When he knows bad weather is coming, he doesn’t leave anything that could damage his facilities on the ground level.  

But as flooding worsens, help from the federal government is waning. The Trump administration announced on April 4 that it was ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program – pulling back approximately $882 billion in funding meant to help municipalities prepare for extreme weather events and other effects of climate change. The administration announced in late April that it was cutting 20 percent from FEMA’s workforce. At the same time, the agency is removing climate-related tools, like ones that predicts coastal erosion, from its website.  

One Massachusetts lawmaker is trying to create a program through which the state would buy properties at risk of flood damage or allocate funds to help property owners secure their homes to help reduce monetary loss. 

Sen. Bruce Tarr, a Republican from Gloucester, proposed a special commission to consider the creation of a loan program for properties prone to flooding. It would allow Massachusetts to create its own state buyout program, similar to the FEMA managed retreat program on the national level. 

“This bill would provide an important means of access to the resources that homeowners would need to be able to be proactive, either by elevating the home [or] using other methods that make it more resilient,” Tarr said. The legislation would also allow the state to purchase property that can’t be made resilient, he added.  

Tarr said this bill aims not only to fill the gaps left by FEMA’s program but to take pressure off the municipal tax base.  

Tarr has filed this bill in every legislative term since 2019. He believes it’s not moving out of committee because “there isn’t the same sense of urgency with every legislator.” 

“I don’t think we’ve come to the full realization of how much of a threat this situation is,” he said. “That is not to say that they are unsympathetic. I very much believe there’s an interest in trying to respond, but I don’t think there’s been a feeling or urgency, and maybe a feeling that these threats are far enough in the future that we don’t need to yet develop this type of a plan.” 

“We need to shift the model that we currently have,” he added. 

Last year, Gov. Maura Healey announced $5.2 million in state grants to support coastal communities dealing with the impacts of climate change. The Office of Coastal Zone Management is funding 16 projects to facilitate shoreline management, erosion control, and infrastructure resilience. 

Some communities on the coast are creating their own solution to flooding programs.  

In August 2024, Boston launched the Office of Climate Resilience to address climate change’s effect on the city and its residents. Chris Osgood, the office’s director, said that the city has a plan that includes training residents on how to deal with rising water. 

“We are a city one-sixth of which is built on landfill and or filled tidelands and as a result of as a result of that, there are a number of low-lying areas along the coastal front, and so if left undressed, that means that the sea level rise and storm surge that we’re expecting would have a significant impact, not just on waterfront properties, but on significant sections of our city,” Osgood said.  

The strategy also includes improving the city’s messaging system and working on the Office of Emergency Management’s near-term flood forecasting system.  

Midterm strategies include projects that lower the risk of flooding in neighborhoods of concern. So far, the city has completed coastal restoration projects in Piers Park in East Boston and Langan Park in the North End to enhance the coastline.  

The city’s long-term strategy is a coastal storm risk management study being done with the US Army Corp of Engineers, which has “the opportunity to unlock potentially millions of dollars worth of funding over decades,” according to Osgood. The study is on track to be submitted to Congress in 2028.  

The town of Salisbury, which is located between a beach and a river, is another example of an area especially prone to flooding. Local officials added tens of thousands of tons of sand to the beaches to help protect houses from erosion and flooding. The dunes were quickly washed away, according to Salisbury resident and former selectman Chuck Takesian, and it left the town more vulnerable to flooding and the elements.  

“[The dunes] were placed strategically on a slope that scientists recommended, so we just plop the sand down,” he said. “When the waves hit it, it started to erode the dune.”  

It initially cost the town $600,000 to install the dunes, just for one storm to wash them away in less than a week, according to NBC Boston. The state later stepped in, allocating $1.75 million for a project to restore the dunes.  

As a flooding victim, Linquata hopes that the government is looking to the future when addressing flood-related issues. “Building structures to keep water out is only a temporary solution,” he said. At the same time, he acknowledged the issues that come with living on the water.  

“A person makes that choice,” he said. “If a person makes that choice, there’s a risk that goes with that choice.”

 Maya Mitchell is a student in the Boston University Statehouse Reporting program.