FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM OCTOBER 31, 2019 • THE QUEENS COURIER 23
Could massive concrete and steel sea gates
stop storm surge from destroying our coasts?
BY TIMOTHY BOLGER
As the region marks the seventh anniversary
of Superstorm Sandy, debate is
surging over proposals to build massive
concrete and steel sea gates at the mouths
of major Long Island waterways to mitigate
future hurricane fl ooding.
Coastal community residents, lawmakers
and environmentalists are at odds over
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACE)
studies exploring the construction of multibillion
fl ood gates in the Rockaway, Fire
Island and Jones inlets to block Atlantic
Ocean storm surge from inundating the
South Shore.
Also proving controversial is an idea
to build a nearly mile-long barrier at the
Th rogs Neck Bridge to keep the Long
Island Sound from swelling the East River
and fl ooding New York City during major
storms.
Most ambitious of all is the suggestion
to erect a 46-foot-high steel barrier
between Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and
Breezy Point, Queens, to protect New
York Harbor when hurricanes strike —
but those residing outside of the gates fear
it will worsen their fl ood damage.
Sparking the federal studies was the
2012 superstorm that killed 53 New
Yorkers, displaced tens of thousands
of residents, and caused $65 billion in
damage. Aft erward, $50 billion in federal
aid was allocated to fund reconstruction
and storm surge mitigation projects,
such as raising structures and rebuilding
dunes along the oceanfront on LI’s barrier
beaches.
Since then, ACE has been studying how
to prepare for the next big storm to hit the
New York Metro area, which is particularly
vulnerable since of forms a right angle,
making storm surge pile up. Th e Th rogs
Neck and New York Harbor draft proposals
stirring up debate are among the alternatives
being explored in what’s known as
the NY & NJ Harbor & Tributaries Focus
Area Feasibility Study (HATS).
HATS, which is further along in its
review than the back bays study, acknowledges
critics’ fears that such hard structures
can worsen fl ooding for those on the
wrong side of the gate.
“Th e closure of the barriers appears to
enhance ocean storm surge for most of
the simulated events outside of the closed
barrier,” the authors of HATS wrote near
the end of the 136-page interim report.
“Potential for induced fl ooding outside
of the closed barriers needs to be further
analyzed in subsequent modeling eff orts
to better understand any induced impacts,
as well as the potential to avoid and mitigate
for those impacts.”
How the inlet and causeway fl ood
gates would impact the South Shore of
LI requires further investigation than
the 74-page bay bays study has gotten
into. Both studies aim to narrow down
ACE’s preferred option by next year,
when they will be subject to further
public review.
But, whatever ideas ACE settles on are
likely to face years, if not decades of
debate, if and when funding ever gets
appropriated, assuming the ideas survive
the review process.
By comparison, the Fire Island Inlet
to Montauk Point Project, another ACE
project to mitigate storm damage for an
83-mile stretch of LI’s southeastern shorefront,
languished for a half century and
didn’t get its $1 billion in federal funding
until aft er Sandy hit.
If the sea gates get built, critics are concerned
that the structures will exacerbate
pollution by inhibiting the free fl ow
of the currents, causing contaminants to
accumulate. Th ere is also concern that the
gates will be used more than once every
two years, which ACE has acknowledged.
“We assume that the surge gates would
initially be operated for a two-year storm
event, which would say once on average
event two years, but as sea level rise
occurs, that would increase,” said Bryce
Wisemiller, an ACE project manager on
the HATS study that is trying to “determine
when and how they would be operated
and for how long.”
Meanwhile, residents in some low-lying
communities who are proponents of the
plans grow impatient by the glacial pace
of the review process. Others believe that
it may be time for some coastal residents
to literally move on.
Steven Resler, a retired New York State
Department of State coastal manager, who
favors sea walls for lower Manhattan,
regularly reminds people that strategic
coastal retreat — not rebuilding waterfront
structures destroyed by fl ooding —
has been required by state law for four
decades.
“We’re supposed to be moving out of
these fragile and important areas and
harm’s way, not spending billions to try
and maintain existing and place new
development in them,” Resler said. “Th is
is not ‘resilience’ … nor is it ‘coastal management.’
It’s sheer and willful madness on
the parts of engineering and other consulting
contractors, the public and government
at every level.”
Th is story fi rst appeared in the Long
Island Press.
AP Photo/John Minchillo, File
In this Oct. 29, 2012 fi le photo, seawater fl oods the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel during
Superstorm Sandy in New York.
ACE graphic
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is studying proposals
to build fl ood gates in local inlets.)
/WWW.QNS.COM
