City Of Charleston Sues 24 Oil And Pipeline Firms Over Chronic Flooding

The city of Charleston, South Carolina filed a lawsuit against two dozen of the largest pipeline and oil conglomerates, saying the firms are responsible for making the floods that often hit the port city more frequent and more damaging.

Charleston, South Carolina’s largest city, has experienced a rapid uptick in flooding—with the Charleston Harbor tide gauge exceeding seven feet (indicating a “nuisance” flood) 89 times in 2019 alone.

In the 1960s, Charleston had only a few such floods a year, and more recently averaged around 40, according to the Post and Courier. More broadly, the South Carolina coast is expected to be radically reshaped in the coming decades by oceanic flooding that is could kill vegetation as well as fauna critical to the food chain across 400,000 acres of coastal marshes.

Scientists believe that climate change is responsible for rising sea levels and that it contributes to increased severity of major storms, resulting in higher and more intense storm surge.

They also believe that the rate of rise in sea levels is accelerating over time.