Thursday, September 27, 2018

NY Harbor Flood Control Scoping Meeting

So, as is usual for September, it's mostly been all work and no fun makes Bonnie a dull blogger, but I did cut out of work at 5 one day last week to go to a scoping meeting where representatives from the Army Corp of Engineers presented flood control options that are being considered for NYC. 

I am in no way qualified to comment on the feasibility of any of these but I will say that the presenters all seemed committed, intelligent, very prepared, and open to questions. The turnout for the 6 pm meeting at the Coney Island Aquarium's Education Hall was good, the concepts and presentation were interesting, and I was very glad to have made it. 

The process is a long and slow one - this is the very first phase of a painstaking process. The first stage is studying the options and making recommendations in a report that would be presented to Congress in (if all stays on schedule, ha) 2022. 

I'm paraphrasing a Facebook comment Jozef K., one of my swimmer friends, posted after the meeting, he was there and I did like his take on the evening.

I did take pictures of some of the presentation materials to share.

For more, visit their website (I think they said the full presentation would eventually be available there). 


http://www.nan.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Projects-in-New-York/New-York-New-Jersey-Harbor-Tributaries-Focus-Area-Feasibility-Study/

NYC residents and other folks along the Hudson are all considered stakeholders in this; email NYNJHarbor.TribStudy@usace.army.mil to join the Stakeholder Mailing List and receive updates on the project. 


Questions and comments can also be sent to that email. They are taking comments through November 5th. 

They said that they are planning at least 2 more meetings in October, these ones in Westchester, hopefully more convenient for a lot of folks for whom a 6 pm meeting at Coney Island on a work night might as well have been on the moon.

Here are photos of parts of the presentation and display materials. Click on the first photo for a slideshow view: 




2 comments:

JP said...

Interesting - looks it would be a big project if it goes ahead!

bonnie said...

The biggest one is kind of mind-boggling, actually.

One of the criteria the final selection has to meet is that the cost of the project has to be less than the cost of the damage it's projected to stop. I bet that would really come into consideration with that one.