The time is now for our community attention to Camden priorities.

For some time, our Town Harbor Master building has had an over 8-foot sign on sea level rise by the 2021 Climate Action and Leadership Lab students, with an urgent appeal, “It is not too late to avoid the worst case scenario but we must act now!” We regularly walk by it.

Last week, NOAA’s National Ocean Services issued its Sea Level Rise Technical Report – comprehensive scientific data and information in highly usable formats. Learning about the range of local impacts is easy but the actions and solutions are not. This is an urgent community priority.

Meanwhile, we have read for months the facts and information around the Montgomery Dam options, thanks, in large part, to the engaged Camden citizens’ fact-focused transparent information, as well as two thick consultant reports and Select Board views.

In the best of worlds, the Camden Select Board would have engaged a citizen committee coincident with the initiation of the studies, as it had initially promised. At the start of the groundswell of Camden resident concern and engagement on this comparatively small issue, it should have quickly embraced this major citizen effort and its factual-based analyses.

While that is still the wise next step, the Select Board appears to be seeking another consultant. As reported in the Knox Village Soup, “The town manager also said she is not a marketing expert and will need the help to educate the public about the issue.”

Marketing?

The town residents are already being well educated thanks to the Dam Falls Committee of engaged citizens and its wise recommendation and petition so many have signed “to protect, preserve, maintain, and repair” the Montgomery Dam near Harbor Park.

The historic and iconic Montgomery Dam and Camden Falls would be protected, and saving the Dam would not prevent flood mitigation or fish passage through fish ladders.

We need to encourage the Select Board to embrace the engaged citizens and its fact-based petition, with its conclusion that matches the facts of the Select Board’s consultant reports.

More importantly, as time is not our friend, the Select Board, together with its engaged community, needs to rapidly pivot to study the updated NOAA scientific information and address truly-urgent climate change priorities. It certainly should meet with the Climate Action and Leadership Lab students, again if it had already.

Let’s resolve the Dam and Falls issue and focus on the urgent sea level rise priority.

We will soon be wading in it.

C. Griffiths lives in Camden