Fae Saulenas does not want your sympathy.
Saulenas, along with her 46-year-old daughter Lauren, spent last winter—their covid winter—in Saugus, Massachusetts, in a house without a working furnace. Saulenas is in her 70s. Lauren, because of brain injuries she experienced in the womb, is quadriplegic, blind, and affected by a seizure disorder, among other disabilities. In winter, it’s not unusual for overnight temperatures in Saugus to dip into the teens. The two could not long survive without heat, so absent a furnace, they relied on a space heater. But the cost of electricity to power it was $750 in February alone, and it warmed only a single bedroom.
Saulenas doesn’t tell this story to engender sympathy but, rather, as a warning. The water table, she says, is rising—seeping into gas lines and corroding furnaces from the inside out. That’s what happened to hers. And she wants you to know that if you live anywhere near a coast—even one, two, three miles away—that water might be coming for you too.
For something you’ve probably never heard about, rising groundwater presents a real, and potentially catastrophic, threat to our infrastructure. Roadways will be eroded from below; septic systems won’t drain; seawalls will keep the ocean out but trap the water seeping up, leading to more flooding. Home foundations will crack; sewers will backflow and potentially leak toxic gases into people’s homes.
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