The Gulf of Maine is an international watershed in the North Atlantic stretching north from Provincetown at the tip of Massachusetts Bay in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to Cape Sable on the Bay of Fundy in the province of Nova Scotia in Canada. For over 13,000 years, the Gulf has been developed around access to the coast for fishing, trading, and recreation. Today, these coastal development patterns put the cultural landscapes, economies, communities, and aging infrastructure systems along the Gulf at risk.
Climate Futures on the Gulf of Maine uses place-based scenario planning to illustrate the risks, vulnerabilities, and plausible futures for ten infrastructure systems along the rim of the Gulf. Place-based scenario planning is a method of long-term strategic planning that creates representations of multiple, plausible futures that are used to inform decision-making in the present. While complementary to probabilistic models used to forecast future vulnerabilities, scenario-based planning shifts emphasis from statistical probability to ways of thinking about the future. The goal of place-based scenario planning is not to predict the most likely outcome, but to reveal biases and blind spots in complex and non-linear situations.
Climate Futures uses the medium of landscape representation to surface the cultural value systems embedded in existing infrastructural systems, and position landscape as a driver when evaluating design from individual infrastructures to the Gulf of Maine watershed.
Infrastructure > Power
SEABROOK STATION NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
626 Lafayette Road
Seabrook, NH 03874
Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant, operated by NextEra Energy Resources, produces 10 million MWH of nuclear energy for 1.2 million people on the unceded lands of the Abenaki peoples. 1 2 The plant is one of two actively operating nuclear power plants on the Gulf of Maine. 3
While construction on the plant began in 1976, due to a series of environmental lawsuits, protests, and acts of civil disobedience, the plant was not operational until 1990. 4 The plant was constructed in the Great Marsh, one of the largest salt marsh complexes in the Gulf of Maine. 5 6 The plant lies 1.2 miles (1.9 kilometers) inland from the Gulf of Maine, sheltered from the ocean behind developed barrier Hampton and Seabrook Beaches. The plant is bordered by salt marsh to the north, south, and east. 7 The marsh buffers wave energy, reduces coastal erosion, and dampens flooding for the surrounding communities of Salisbury, Newbury, Newburyport, Rowley, Ipswich, Essex, Gloucester, Hampton, and Seabrook. 8 The Hamptons-Seabrook estuary, which surrounds the nuclear plant, will lose the most salt marsh acreage. 9
While the plant is constructed twenty feet above sea level on high ground, many of the surrounding roads, including the North Access Road to the plant are low-lying, and projected to be impacted by sea level rise and flooding. 10 11 Emergency planning in Seabrook and within a ten-mile radius of the plant requires planning for both critical access to the plant in the event of a flooding emergency, as well as evacuation in the event of a nuclear emergency.
In addition to concerns around regional flooding in the Great Marsh, in 2009, NextEra found micro-cracking in its below-grade concrete structures caused by alkali-silica reaction (ASR), which forms a gel that expands and causes concrete to crack. In response, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspects the plant’s structures every six months. 12 This discovery and reviews were accounted for in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC’s) decision to renew NextEra Energy’s contract to operate the plant through March 15, 2050. 13
The uncertainty around lease renewal after 2050 provides an opportunity to decommission the plant and transition to a nuclear waste storage facility, or explore marsh migration strategies such as thin layer deposition to raise the elevation of the salt marsh.
Scenario 0: Storm of the Century 2030
While the salt marsh around the nuclear plant buffers the campus from storm surge during the storm, an alkali-silica reaction (ASR) occurs in the concrete seawall surrounding the plant, causing cracking. The low-lying roads flooding the plant make it impossible for emergency crews to reach the campus, leaving the on-site crew to stay awake without backup throughout the duration of the storm.
Scenario 1: Fortified Systems
The seawall is raised and reinforced with a stone revetment. The emergency access roads leading to the plant are elevated. Solar panels are installed to charge batteries that can supplement emergency diesel generators during storms.
Scenario 2: Catchment Commons
Seabrook Station begins to be decommissioned. The process will take over twenty years, but begins with moving the seawall inland, restoring marshland, and planting salt-tolerant trees along the former plant roadway.
International Watershed | Gulf of Maine | Hydrologic Unit Code |
Region (HUC-2) | New England | HUC 01 |
Subregion (HUC-4) | Saco | HUC 0106 |
Basin (HUC-6) | Saco | HUC 010600 |
Subbasin (HUC-8) | Piscataqua – Salmon Falls | HUC 01060003 |
Watershed (HUC-10) | Hampton River – Atlantic Ocean | HUC 0106000310 |
Subwatershed (HUC-12) | Hampton River | HUC 010600031005 |
Archaeologist Brian S. Robinson found evidence of Maritime Archaic peoples, a Paleoindian tribe, in Seabrook 4,000 years ago. At that time, the sea level was 10 to 15 feet lower, which has maintained artifacts, including swordfish bones, a species that no longer lives in the Gulf of Maine, under marsh sod. See Brian S. Robinson, “The Nelson Island and Seabrook Marsh Sites: Late Archaic, Marine Oriented People on the Central New England Coast,” in Ceramic Analysis in the Northeast: Contributions to Methodology and Culture History, ed. James B. Petersen (Rindge, NH: Franklin Pierce College, 1985).
An archaeological survey of the plant completed in 1974 before construction began noted that “several prehistoric archaeological sites will be severely disturbed or destroyed by the proposed construction.” Public Service Company of New Hampshire, “Environmental Statement Related to the Proposed Seabrook Statio Units 1 and 2” (Washington, D.C.: United States Atomic Energy Commission Directorate of Licensure, December 1974), 2-5.
Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in Maces Bay, New Brunswick, Canada is also currently operational. Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Wiscasset, Maine, United States and Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States are both closed.
The largest act of civil disobedience took place in 1977, when over 1400 protesters, organized by the Clamshell Alliance, a citizens group trying to permanently stop construction at the site, were arrested. Protesters included lobstermen who brought their boats from Hampton Harbor to the east side of the site through the tidal channels in the Great Marsh. See Steven A. Wasserman, “Civil Disobedience at Seabrook,” The Harvard Crimson, May 9, 1977, www.thecrimson.com/article/1977/5/9/civil-disobedience-at-seabrook-pseabrook-new.
Amateur historian Peter Evan Randall writes a comprehensive history of the Town of Hampton, including the lawsuits and citizen’s perspective of construction at Seabrook Station. See Peter Evans Randall, Hampton: A Century of Town and Beach, 1888-1988 (Hampton, NH: Peter E. Randall, 1989).
The Great Marsh is the largest salt marsh in New England, spanning from northern Massachusetts to southern New Hampshire. In Canada, the Bay of Fundy salt marshes are found in Annapolis, Shubenacadie, Avon, Petitcodiac, Tantramar, and Missaguash. See John A. Percy, “Dikes, Dams and Dynamos: The Impacts of Coastal Structures” (Environment Canada, August 1996), www.bofep.org/wpbofep/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/J-Fundy-Issues-9.pdf.
Salt marshes can grow in two directions: vertically or horizontally. They can grow vertically, or accrete, as peat accumulates above the reach of the daily tides, and high marsh takes root in areas that are sheltered from wave energy. Salt marshes can also migrate horizontally, moving into inland habitats when terrestrial plants die from salt spray blown in during storms, or, increasingly from sea level rise. At Seabrook Station, the seawall and subgrade structures that rises behind the Station will prevent horizontal migration, meaning that the surrounding marsh will likely transition to low marsh, and eventually tidal flats, or degraded areas without vegetation, if the marsh cannot accrete faster than the sea is rising. See Sergio Fagherazzi et al., “Salt Marsh Dynamics in a Period of Accelerated Sea Level Rise,” JGR Earth Surface 125, no. 8 (2020): e2019JF005200.
The Ipswich River Watershed Association published a comprehensive guide to the current state of the Great Marsh and adaptation strategies for sea level rise and storm surge in the communities bordering the marsh. See Taj Schottland et al., “Great Marsh Coastal Adaptation Plan” (Montpelier, VT: National Wildlife Federation Northeast Regional Office, 2017).
Rockingham Planning Commission, “Town of Seabrook, New Hampshire Vulnerability Assessment Report of Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Storm Surge Flooding” (Rockingham, NH: Rockingham Planning Commission, September 2015): 33, www.therpc.org/application/files/8014/6920/2321/Seabrook_Vulnerability_Assessment.pdf.
Rockingham Planning Commission. “Town of Seabrook, New Hampshire Vulnerability Assessment Report of Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Storm Surge Flooding.” Rockingham, NH: Rockingham Planning Commission, September 2015. www.therpc.org/application/files/8014/6920/2321/Seabrook_Vulnerability_Assessment.pdf.
The FEMA AE Flood Zone notes areas that have a 1-percent change of being inundated by a flood event in any given year. The 1-percent annual chance flood is also referred to as the 100-year flood. The FEMA AE Flood Zone notes areas that have a 0.2-percent change of being inundated by a flood event in any given year. The 0.2-percent annual chance flood is also referred to as the 500-year flood. See “Glossary,” Federal Emergency Management Agency, www.fema.gov/about/glossary
The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission provides daily reactor status updates, as well as inspection reports, information on license renewal, and operating licenses on its website. See “Seabrook Station, Unit 1,” United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, accessed June 20, 2025, www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactors/seab1.html.
Scott Burnell and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “NRC Renews Seabrook Operating License,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission, March 12, 2019, www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2019/19-013.pdf.
