New York City Begins Its Climate Change Reckoning on the Lower East Side

The city redesigned much of a $1.5 billion floodwall project along the East River without any community input, shattering trust. Now, New York is pursuing similar climate resiliency projects in Manhattan that Mayor Eric Adams calls “complex, novel and unparalleled compared to any other American city.”

By Delaney Dryfoos, Inside Climate News

Next to the Brooklyn Bridge, on an unassuming red brick building, a preserved chalk line serves as a permanent reminder of the 14-foot waves from Hurricane Sandy that inundated Lower Manhattan in October 2012, closed Wall Street, blacked out power to a quarter of a million city residents and killed 44 New Yorkers. 

Less than a year later, in August 2013, the Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development picked a well-known Danish architecture firm, the Bjarke Ingels Group—BIG for short—in a competition called Rebuild by Design. Bjarke Ingels was selected for its plan to protect a vast expanse of Manhattan from future flooding “as we prepare communities across the country for the impacts of a changing climate,” HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said at the time.

The following June, the department sent New York a $335 million check to build a 2.4-mile span of berms, floodwalls, and water gates along the city’s Lower East Side as the first phase in the firm’s “BIG U” vision for a 10-mile, U-shaped water defense that would run from 57th Street on the West Side to the tip of Lower Manhattan, and then up to 42nd Street on the East Side. 

Connect Resilience Projects to Form the 'BIG U'

The first phase, now called the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, was described by city and federal officials in 2014 as a “nature as buffer” approach that would allow the beloved East River Park, built by Robert Moses in the 1930s, to flood during climate-amplified extreme weather events. Officials said that phase would cost $770 million and be finished in as little as four years.

None of that turned out to be true.

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Can novel methods restore the ailing salt marshes of New Jersey and Delaware?

Standing water will be helped to escape more rapidly, restoring the marshes to their natural state

By ZOE READ, WHYY NEWS

Large storms can devastate coastal communities when no buffers exist to protect them.

But salt marshes, which are coastal wetlands flooded and drained by salt water from the tides, can shield buildings and homes.

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“When Hurricane Sandy hit, if we didn’t have salt marshes there, a lot of homes would actually be more damaged,” said Emmy Casper, a wildlife biologist with the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey. “They’re like little sponges that absorb a bunch of water that would otherwise be flooding houses.”

However, coastal towns are at greater risk of flooding today. That’s because salt marshes have been degraded by farming methods, and even historic practices meant to prevent mosquito breeding. Sea-level rise caused by climate change puts more strain on the marshes.

“We’re really realizing the importance of saving our salt marshes, and realizing we need to do something now,” said Kaity Ripple, a fish and wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

So, the environmental group Ducks Unlimited is using more than $500,000 in funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and other donors to restore salt marshes in Delaware and New Jersey. The organization is partnering with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and other local groups such as the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.

Ducks Unlimited will dig shallow channels called “runnels,” allowing standing water to escape more rapidly and restore the marshes to their natural state. This project uses a technique that’s low-cost and could potentially decrease the need for large-scale projects. The technique is new to the mid-Atlantic region but has already shown success in New England.

“If you look at an unhealthy salt marsh, it’s very saturated. You’ll see a lot of bigger pools,” said Joe Genzel, a communications coordinator for Ducks Unlimited. “With a healthy salt marsh, you’ll see a lot of interconnected smaller pools. And so that’s what runnels do.”

Read the full story here

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Alabama landfill fire still burning after three months

Fire burns beneath a landfill in St. Clair County, Alabama, in a photo released by Moody Fire Department on Dec. 19, 2022.

By Hadley Hitson, Montgomery Advertiser

The underground landfill fire in St. Clair County is almost out — over three months since it started burning and disrupted the lives of families in Moody and surrounding areas. 

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management reports that no smoke has been seen at the landfill since Feb. 28, and the “prevalent” odor faded over the last week. Still, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it “could be several more weeks before the fire is completely out.”

Now, state and local leaders are looking to learn from the shortcomings that the fire exposed across all levels of government. ADEM announced last week that it established a working group to examine the response to the fire and make recommendations on how to improve the statewide response to emergency situations like the fire in the future. 

“The one thing we’ve got to work on is: How do we make this go faster? Because we cannot put citizens through this again,” State Sen. Lance Bell said at an ADEM press conference last week. “We were all talking on the phone, working through the different channels, but when you have a property that’s owned by an individual and an unregulated landfill in an unincorporated county, it becomes a nightmare.”

The fire at Environmental Landfill, Inc. started burning in late November. The Moody Fire Department responded immediately but was unable to reach the underground source. From there, authority over the response shifted several times before ADEM called in the EPA for help.

Read the full story here

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Bee-boosting bill buzzes through NJ Senate panel

Legislation sponsored by NJ State Senator Anthony M. Bucco that encourages homeowners and businesses to make their property more bee-friendly has cleared the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.

“New Jersey is the Garden State, but gardens don’t flourish without pollinators including bees,” said Bucco (R-25). “Unfortunately, our bee populations continue to fall at an alarming rate, which puts everything from home gardens to commercial agriculture at risk. This legislation encourages homeowners and businesses to install bee-friendly habitats to help stop the decline.”

Researchers at Rutgers University recently published a study that highlighted concerns about the sharp decline of bee populations in New Jersey. The lack of bee habitats can have severe impacts on the ecosystem, as bees, certain insects, and even birds account for pollinating more than 80% of all plants.

Sen. Bucco’s bill, S-3643, establishes a pilot program within the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to offer reimbursement to homeowners and businesses for certain costs associated with converting their lawns and gardens into bee-friendly habitats.

The program would offer eligible homeowners up to $250 in reimbursement while businesses could receive up to $500. Under the bill, the state Agriculture department would be required to develop a webpage with information about the pilot program and a list of plants that qualify homeowners and businesses to receive reimbursement.

Read the full story here

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Philly’s Chinatown, split by Vine Street Expressway, could be reunited by a cap

“This community never gave up the fight for ways to mitigate the expressway,” said John Chin, executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp.

The Vine Street Expressway at Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pa. on Wednesday, March 8, 2023. The city plans to cap the Vine Street Expressway to reconnect Chinatown, from Broad Street to Eighth Street.
The Vine Street Expressway at Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pa. on Wednesday, March 8, 2023. The city plans to cap the Vine Street Expressway to reconnect Chinatown, from Broad Street to Eighth Street. Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

By Jeff Gammage, Philadelphia Inquirer Mar 8, 2023

They’re calling it the Chinatown Stitch, a modest name for a massive construction project that would reconnect the north and south sides of the neighborhood by physically capping the below-ground Vine Street Expressway.

City officials and neighborhood leaders said Wednesday that they’re newly hopeful that, finally, it can be done. If all goes as planned — and that’s a big if — groundbreaking could come in 2028.

Related news stories:
Philly wants to stitch together Chinatown (WHYY)
Philly Studying the Capping of I-676 (NBC 10 TV)
Philly to explore capping Vine Street Expressway (Philly Voice)
Businesses fear Sixers arena would ‘destroy’ Chinatown (WHYY)

“This community never gave up the fight for ways to mitigate the expressway,” John Chin, executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp., said at a media briefing.

A website has been launched to gather ideas and opinions from area residents, and the first community-engagement meeting is set for April 26.

The study area would be from Broad Street to Eighth Street.

A cap would reduce noise, create green space, and become a platform for the construction of homes and businesses. Officials had no estimate of the total cost but said that capping a single city block could be $25 million to $30 million.

Read the full story here

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