Will Bainbridge Island keep up with rising seas?

Published 1:30 am Friday, March 6, 2026

As islanders, sea level rise is a reality we cannot ignore. If you live near the shoreline, rising waters may mean your home is in harm’s way. But sea level rise will affect us all in some way.

Many of our island’s roads are at risk from sea level rise. Eagle Harbor Drive, Point White Drive, and Manitou Beach Drive already see erosion and flooding at king tides. Will we re-engineer these roads or reroute them? The construction-related road closures at the head of Eagle Harbor have been a temporary inconvenience; what does sea level rise mean for that route long-term?

Utilities, septic systems and sewer lines are also in the path of rising seas. When coastal infrastructure is inundated, whether public or private, we will all have to deal with the costs to repair or relocate these services. Sea level rise is not the only climate change threat we face – rising temperatures and altered rainfall patterns are also risks we need to prepare for. Climate change also threatens our natural ecosystems, including local beaches and harbors and the benefits they provide for people and wildlife. The more we think about and plan for climate risks in advance, the better off we will be as a community in managing these risks.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is vitally important, but it is only part of the challenge, as the carbon dioxide we have already emitted commits us to significant sea level rise over the coming centuries. Therefore, we need to figure out how to live with rising seas. Our preparations for and responses to the impacts of climate change, including sea level rise, is called “adaptation.”

Three years ago, EcoAdapt surveyed hundreds of island residents about what they thought we should do about sea level rise. Residents were overwhelmingly concerned about this issue, but did not have uniform ideas for what to do. Many thought it best to avoid building on the shoreline. Some thought we should add sea walls or other structures to protect the land from rising seas, while others thought we should use more nature-based solutions. Many residents showed little appetite for supporting changes in private infrastructure—but without advance planning, we could get stuck as a community paying that bill. These answers all point to the need for finding solutions that reduce risk and do so fairly.

What can Bainbridge Islanders do about sea level rise?

Our solution set will need to include a diverse array of creative ideas, informed by the science, policy, and legal implications of our actions. If you want to be part of this conversation, come to the 2026 Bainbridge Island Environmental Conference: Rising Seas March 29 at IslandWood. Learn more and register at sustainablebainbridge.org/programs/biec/.

EcoAdapt has a Bainbridge Island Sea Level Rise Resource page to help you learn more about sea level rise, its risks, and the surveys described above (ecoadapt.org/BISLR). However, sometimes a report is not enough to help us grasp the magnitude of the challenge sea level rise will present. To help with this, we’ve created ways to visualize the magnitude of sea level rise. One is on the north windows of the passenger overhead walkway to the ferry, and the other is a “Reverse Time Capsule” interactive sculpture at Fay Bainbridge Park. Both show how much sea level rise is projected for Bainbridge Island by the middle and the end of the century. They invite you to consider what this means for our island and what we should be doing to prepare and respond.

We encourage you to take time to ensure local jurisdictions, including the city, county, state, parks district, schools and utilities, take sea level rise into account as they develop long-term plans. Make sure we are incorporating sea level rise projections into coastal development and improvements, as well as updates of city and county comprehensive plans. In some cases, we may need to rethink past strategies, including moving roads and houses, changing traffic flow, and re-engineering septic systems.

It is not a matter of if the seas will rise. The science is clear that sea levels are rising and will impact our community. We should figure out what we’re going to do about it.

Drs. Lara Hansen and Deb Rudnick are part of the team at EcoAdapt—a Bainbridge Island-based nonprofit that works to innovate and realize climate change adaptation solutions locally and beyond our island’s shores.