After months deliberations on how best to protect Hoboken and part of Weehawken from a Hurricane Sandy-like storm surge, the state has chosen a plan that officials say offers the least protection among three final alternatives.
But the plan, which uses a $230 million federal grant, also has the smallest impact on the community, and can be completed at an affordable price.
Steve Strunsky reports for NJ.com
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection officials overseeing the project say the selected plan, known as Alternative 3, would protect 85 percent of the project area from a surge resulting from a 100-year storm. The cost will be roughly equal to the amount of the federal grant.
Essentially, the plan calls for flood barriers up to 10 feet high at the northern and southern ends of Hoboken’s Hudson River waterfront. The barriers would be built by an inlet along Observer Highway near the Jersey City border to the south, and extending up to 19th Street in Weehawken to the north.
The barriers would be landscaped and otherwise integrated into the city streets. The plan would incorporate high ground along the city’s central waterfront, occupied mainly by the Stevens Institute of Technology Campus, to act as a natural flood barrier.
According to DEP’s Alternatives Summary Sheet, the plan would offer substantially less flood protection than Alternative 1, a nearly continuous series of waterfront walls and gates that would protect 98 percent of the project area.
But the DEP says Alternative 1, would also substantially alter the character of the waterfront and even hinder access to it.
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