Posted on June 14, 2021
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y — A project intended to protect the South Shore’s coastal communities is finally set to get underway in the fall after years of delays.
Funding was approved for the project, known as “Living Breakwaters,” and state-run construction was meant to have begun in 2018, according to a 2017 report from the Advance/SILive.com, but the project has languished since then.
In an emailed statement, a spokeswoman for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR), which is overseeing the project, said they’d executed a contract with Weeks Marine, and that they expect the project to be complete by 2024.
“GOSR is excited to begin in-water construction by this fall on our innovative Living Breakwaters Project, which will effectively attenuate wave action and make the South Shore of Staten Island stronger, more resilient and more eco-friendly,” GOSR General Counsel Emily Thompson said.
A representative with GOSR said apart from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the project was further delayed when the state took steps to reassess the cost when initial bids came back higher than expected.
After making cost adjustments, the total project is expected to have a bill of $107 million with $60 million coming from the federal government, and the rest being paid for by the state.
In 2014, City Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore), who was then a member of the New York Assembly, joined a group of his local Republican colleagues and Sen. Charles Schumer to call for funding of the project. That push was ultimately successful later that year.
Seven years removed from the funding’s securement and three years removed from an expected start date, Borelli wants to know why the project has taken so long. He pointed to similar projects in New Jersey that had their funding from the federal government secured around the same time, and have since been completed.
“Years behind New Jersey. There’s no way to work around that,” he said.
Borelli visited the site of the planned project last week with Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Long Island), an early Republican opponent in Cuomo’s 2022 election bid.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Long Island) tours the beach in Tottenville with City Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore) on Wednesday, June 2, 2021. (Staten Island Advance/Paul Liotta)
During their tour near the intersection of Surf Avenue and Loretto Street, the pair saw the dilapidated sandbags installed as a temporary measure to protect the coast, and decried the lack of progress on the larger project.
A former member of the New York Senate, Zeldin’s district at the time suffered significant impact from Sandy. He criticized the state’s inaction, and Cuomo’s leadership as leaving the South Shore community at risk.
“You’re really rolling the dice,” Zeldin said. “The area gets hit then people are going to really start questioning your leadership and judgement. This is not one of those projects, at all, that you should be almost a decade later rolling any dice with.”
It will also have a shoreline restoration component in which there will be sand replenishment along the shore from Manhattan Street to Loretto Street, an area GOSR described as “especially prone to erosion and where public and private assets are vulnerable.”
