A recent article in the Times Record said that a study had shown Maine land values were decreasing because of tidal flooding. As a past Chair of the Bath Board of Assessment Review I questioned the findings since we had not seen any challenges to the assessed value of shoreline properties which would have been expected if the issue was real. The truth is probably that the study only picked properties that were in the flood zone that decreased in value. Any homeowner knows that there are more than one reason property values decrease. When you link things this way in a study, you are prone to look for correlation and dismiss everything else. Every scientist knows that correlation is not causation. Your alarm clock does not cause the sun to come up, even though both occur about the same time.
Also, the comment-“Sea levels are projected to rise across coastal New England by 1.7 inches in five years and 3.6 inches in 10 years, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers” got my scientific antenna up because they seemed to be exceptionally high.
So I checked the official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) records for Portland and they said- “The relative sea level trend is 1.87 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.15 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1912 to 2017 which is equivalent to a change of 0.61 feet in 100 years.” That is 7.32 inches in 100 years! The articles numbers are very wrong compared to the reality published by NOAA.
In a nutshell, we are expected to believe that over a 10-year period Bath flood prone property values dropped over 4 million dollars, the most in Maine, because of a NOAA recorded 10 year actual rise in the tide of three quarters of an inch! Not the 3.6 inches in the article which is off by a factor of five!
So, we have another 100 years before we see the tide go up by 7.32 more inches. By then you should be able to protect your property value by building a one-foot seawall. 

Bill Truesdell, 

Bath