MIAMI, Fla. — Climate technologies that work with nature, not against it, are the future of protecting our coastlines from climate change, sea level rise, and more powerful storms.
Floridians know all too well the devastation hurricanes bring to local communities. While it is impossible to avoid destruction and damage following a direct hit from a major hurricane, there are ways to build more resilience, protecting people, marine life, and property from the worst impacts.
What starts as a thin bead of concrete rapidly rises into a reinforced concrete beast, growing to 10 feet tall and weighing 10,000 pounds.
WATCH a time-lapse of the seawall being 3D printed
ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska and photojournalist Reed Moeller traveled to Miami to see how the living sea walls are created at KindDesigns and to interview Anya Freeman, Founder and CEO.
"I'm not a Florida girl originally. I'm from Ukraine. I grew up in Israel and had the opportunity to visit your amazing country when I was already a teenager. So, my dad got a job with the space program, and we all immigrated to America, which was extremely exciting. We're all very, very grateful to become US citizens and wanting to make the most of that opportunity. You can see the first thing I did was hang up this giant American flag in the warehouse," Freeman said.
WATCH full report from Michael Paluska
Freeman is a lawyer-turned-climate-tech entrepreneur on a mission to make Florida communities safer.
"Number one, finding a solution for my home in Florida. Number two, building technology that was extremely scalable and duplicable so that we can bring this technology and solution to every coastal city at risk. And number three, we wanted to build something awesome for the ocean," Freeman said. "Whether you're putting in a new sea wall or putting one in front of an old sea wall, you can use our panels. Our panels don't change the installation method. They're installed exactly like a traditional sea wall, and any local marine contractor can do the installation themselves."
The seawalls can be designed in any style to simulate natural features found in nature, such as mangrove roots; a fancy term for this is biomimicry.
All of their projects are currently located on the East Coast of Florida, primarily around Miami. Projects that, just months after installation, are bringing back marine life lost when traditional flat concrete seawalls hardened the coastline.
"Will marine life that attaches to the sea wall protect it from storm surge?" Paluska asked.
"It's actually what they call a bio of bio concrete, as sea life attaches. They're depositing their shells or their skeletons into the wall. They're repairing cracks, improving the strength of the wall, and it also attracts more and more sea life," Freeman said. "For example, the first project we ever did was in Miami Beach 10 months ago, on Pine Tree Drive. Today, there are over 2000 oysters. There's only a 100-square-foot. And what's amazing is one oyster filters 50 gallons of water in a day, so that water residential sea wall, every single day, is filtering 100,000 gallons of water. And the more oysters you have, the more oysters come. It's very, very much an exponential growth. It's amazing what nature can do if you just provide space for them to attach, to thrive, to hide from predators because nature is now improving the strength of the wall. Nature is making sure that more and more things attach, and nature is going to work improving the quality of water, yeah, but all we did was to provide a space for them to thrive and provide a material that's not poisoning them."
On Longboat Key, Paluska met with Ryan Gandy, Ph.D., Science and Restoration Manager at the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program.
"They're going to do almost 300 feet of the sea wall behind me," Gandy said.
The construction will be the first-ever KindDesigns living sea wall on Florida's west coast.
"What could be the benefits over a year or two?" Paluska asked.
"It adds to the populations of fish and shrimp and crabs that are around here by having them," Gandy said. "And, if we can get oysters back on these, which we think will happen, you know, and pretty quick because oysters grow fast. I mean, within 18 months, you can go from having an oyster that just sat down and stuck to the sea wall to something that's about three inches long, and they filter the water. Oysters worldwide are under threat. We have lost about 85% of our oyster resources worldwide, and in Florida, the situation is the same. When you look at when storms come through, if you have a mature oyster bar or even mature mangroves with oysters growing on the roots of those, it attenuates the wave energy coming into that property. So you can protect a lot of infrastructure by having that natural shoreline and a combination of oysters and mangroves."
There is a lot of doom and gloom surrounding climate change. Still, Freeman believes humans are smart enough to fix the problem with science, technology, innovation, and understanding before it's too late.
"You launched an entire company based upon trying to make Florida stronger and more resilient. Do you feel as though, if we put these all over the place, or if we just built smarter, that we can remain in Florida as we deal with all the climate changes?" Paluska asked.
"Oh my God, absolutely," Freeman said. "This is a challenge. It's very exciting to see. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity. And for us, we have an opportunity to make Florida an example to the rest of the world. Globally, there are 507 cities at risk. A lot of 30% of them are living below the poverty line. They can't even afford coastal infrastructure, so forget the negative environmental impact of sea walls. So the idea is to mass produce these sea walls in Florida, replace every toxic linear foot of sea walls with essentially an artificial reef that is also dissipating waves, and then set an example to the rest of the world of what's possible and be able to bring that message of hope and excitement about innovation and the possibilities to keep their coastal cities safe forever."
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