Posted on March 13, 2017
By JoAnne Castagna, silive.com
Coastal storms like Hurricane Sandy aren’t new, but what is new are the stakes. Today we have more development and people living on our coast. We also now face an unpredictable climate change and sea level rise, which could further compound coastal flooding.
Bryce Wisemiller, project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New York District, is working on what could possibly be one of the largest Corps studies ever undertaken that will look at ways to safeguard communities in the New York and New Jersey Metropolitan region from future hurricanes.
A multi-agency team will work with communities to recommend a combination of risk reduction measures to enable adaptation om an unpredictable future.
Wisemiller and two other key Army Corps team members recently discussed the study and answered questions and concerns the public may have.
How did this study come about?
The “New York and New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study” study is an offshoot of a comprehensive study performed by the Corps right after Hurricane Sandy, which identified risks and vulnerabilities along the North Atlantic Coast from Maine to Virginia.
“From this comprehensive study, several regions were identified for further study including the big sleeping elephant in the room that was basically ground zero for Hurricane Sandy — the New York and New Jersey Harbor and tributaries area,” said Joseph Vietri, who headed the comprehensive study and is the director of Coastal Storm Risk Management National Center of Expertise, North Atlantic Division, USACE.
Wisemiller said, “An additional study will be done in this region of approximately 16 million people because it was one of the hardest hit areas during Hurricane Sandy. Not only that, the region is also apt to still have those same risks going into the future. Even though there are a number of projects and studies on the way.”
The Corps will work with many agencies on this study from New York and New Jersey, including the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and New York City Office of Recovery and Resiliency.
A full range of risk reduction measures are going to be offered to communities and include structural, nonstructural and natural and nature-based features.
“You have communities that value natural and nature based features a lot more than structural alternatives,” Vietri said. “They can increase what they see as important and downplay what they value less. To say that everything should be the same is totally not correct.”
Cackler agreed that a one size fits all approach doesn’t work. “We have a very diverse study area in terms of topography and land use. Using a combination of risk management measures allows us to tailor our approach by using the most appropriate measures for that community.”
Did you learn anything from Hurricane Sandy that will be part of this study?
“Yes and you’ll see it in everything we do for generations to come,” said Vietri. “When you have something like Sandy that cleans the slate, you have an opportunity to do something in a different and smarter way.” He added that projects in place now are already benefiting from what we learned from Hurricane Sandy.
Wisemiller agreed. “Hurricane Sandy illustrated, all too well, the risks that this area faces from coastal storms in terms of property loss as well as the unfortunate loss of life.”
Vietri said, “Places that people thought they could go to get out of the high water turned out not so much. Sandy upturned a lot of what we thought was the floodplain. Because of Sandy, the team will take a re-look at the scale and scope of the floodplain and this could lead to improved hurricane evacuation planning, mapping of evacuation routes and shelter in place locations.
Sandy also confirmed that some existing measures are already working.
Cackler said, “It was discovered after Sandy, areas that had an Army Corps project in place, such as beach fill or levees, fared a lot better than areas that did not have a project. Even when there was some flooding, it was substantially reduced from what would have happened without the project in place.”
Vietri agreed. “There are places in New Jersey where there were healthy beach and dune systems. After Sandy, the people in these areas had minimal damages. Literally, 200 yards down the beach where there was no project there was complete devastation. Houses and roads gone.”
Will this study factor in possible climate change and sea level rise over the next 50 years?
“Whatever you think is the cause of climate change, the fact is the seas are rising. And we are going to have to take it into account in our future plans,” Vietri said.
He added that it’s predicted future sea level rise could rise anywhere between 1-6 feet over the next 100 years. “That’s a pretty big envelope in which you’re trying to plan a design,” said Vietri.
Cackler said, “How we deal with planning uncertainty is with Resilient Adaptation. This allows us to adapt to the changing conditions as we see them in real time.”
Are we actually going to see something happen from this study?
There is definitely interest to get this study started said Cackler, “This study is so important that multiples staff from New York and New Jersey and the U.S. Government worked tirelessly to execute the agreement to start the study.”
Vietri agreed. “Funding is coming at a faster rate to do these studies even in this era of tight funding.”
He said that this requires an adaptive mindset and he is happy to say that he is seeing it. He said one example of this is that he is seeing more agencies get tougher on developers who want to build in flood zones. “I haven’t seen this in my 30 year career with the Army Corps,” said Vietri.
He said he also sees this changed mindset in himself and in his colleagues. Like many in the Corps, he worked on several critical missions for the agency, such as Hurricane Sandy.
“What gets me the most is the impact to people. The look on their faces and the helplessness. I’m also struck by their resiliency. It pushes you to try to do something bigger and better, to search for answers that would help to reduce or eliminate this human tragedy. If you think I’m passionate about it. I am. We have to be. Otherwise we will cease to exist as an organization.”
Information about The New York and New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study and upcoming community meetings about the study may be obtained by emailing cenan-pa@usace.army.mil.
Source: silive.com
