• Text Size:
• ASmall Text
• AMedium Text
• ALarge Text

MARSHFIELD, Mass. —A “political hot potato,” the exact cause of climate change isn’t the main concern for Andre Martecchini, a Kleinfelder Northeast engineer. It’s happening regardless, he said Monday night.

The question is what coastal towns can to do about the rising sea levels, which could grow more than 5 feet in the next 75 years, the Patriot Ledger reported.

Images: What US cities could look like if sea levels rise

“If we’re having a problem today, what will that problem look like 25, 50 or 75 years from now?” said Martecchini, a Duxbury resident.

The function hall at Haddad’s Ocean Café was standing room only as 170 or so residents turned out at the selectmen’s meeting to hear the results of a Kleinfelder study on sea levels in Marshfield, Scituate and Duxbury.

State Rep. Jim Cantwell, D-Marshfield, and Julia Knisel of the state Office of Coastal Zone Management also attended the meeting on the $30,000 study, funded by a grant from the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment.

Martecchini said sea levels in Marshfield could rise 1.08 feet in 25 years, 2.8 feet in 50 years and 5.16 feet in 75 years.

Martecchini showed maps of different areas in town and the projected ocean levels, both with and without storm surge.

The audience at times gasped, particularly when a future projection showed certain roads underwater.

“We have no way under this limited study to say whether the house is physically flooded. The ground around it might be,” Martecchini said.