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Improving plans for Mill River

East Rockaway reps attend second Rebuild of Design meeting

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At the second meeting to discuss the Rebuild by Design program to make Mill River more storm-resilient, citizens brainstormed ways to involve the surrounding communities, and the design team reported on its plans so far. Rebuild by Design is an initiative by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development designed to help communities recover from Hurricane Sandy and prepare for the next large storm.

“Rebuild by Design means a lot to East Rockaway as part of the ongoing efforts to learn from the tragedy that was Superstorm Sandy, and to better prepare and be ready for potential future hardships,” said Village Trustee Rich Bilello, who attended the meeting. He said that there are “tremendous” resources being offered for a variety of projects, whether it’s the NY Rising Community Reconstruction Program, the Bay Park Sewage plant or the Rebuild By Design Living with the Bay project.

Living with the Bay is a South Shore flooding resliliency project that encomasses Mill River, the north-south tributary flowing from Hempstead Lake State Park to East Rockaway Channel. During Superstorm Sandy, Nassau County was hit with heavy rain and an 18-foot tidal surge. Fourteen people lost their lives and more than 113,000 homes were destroyed. Public and private infrastructure along the river were damaged, including bridges, businesses, parks, roads, schools, and the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant.

“Having been involved in earlier discussions, I was impressed with how different agencies and municipalities were working together to achieve our goals, and how [information was] being shared across these units,” Bilello added.

The meeting, held on Aug. 22 at Malverne Village Hall, was the second gathering of Rebuild by Design’s Citizens Advisory Committee, which will help plan and implement the project. All of the committee members are residents of towns surrounding Mill River, and they all have a stake in the project and unique expertise: The group comprises community organizers, marine biologists, environmental engineers, college students and others.

The $125 million in funding for the project came from HUD, and was awarded as part of a Rebuild by Design contest in June 2014. In the two years since, the Interboro Team, a collaboration of Dutch and American designers, has come up with new ways to make the Mill River area more resistant to storm damage. The goal is to protect the communities along its entire length from flooding while preserving the natural environment. The methods used will be replicable, in order to help other areas around the country.

Kris Van Orsdel, the managing director of the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery, which is overseeing the project, led the meeting. “Ultimately, the way the money works is that by 2021, we have to be done,” he said. “By the 2017 to 2019 period, we really need to be doing some things. And so we’ve developed a really good working relationship with HUD and our other partners … The idea is to put together a series of projects that we can start to advance now so that citizens and people we reach can see we’re moving, but … ultimately, by a certain time period, we’ve got to lock things down so that we can go through the environmental [review, and] get construction going.”

Advisory Committee members brainstormed ways to reach out to residents and environmental groups, to develop recreation opportunities and long-term monitoring strategies, and to create opportunities for women- and minority-owned businesses.

“It was an interesting meeting,” said Pat Sympson of the Historical Society of East Rockaway and Lynbrook. “My concern at the meeting was a dearth of discussion on the preservation of history in their overall plan as it was presented. I have followed up on this concern.”

There was also a review of the Rebuild by Design projects for Malverne, including the greenway that will use Malverne High School land and help students learn about their environment, and storm water management projects to prevent contaminants from flowing into Mill River.

“It was clear that the high school was eager and interested in reactivating the preserve that’s always been here,” said Michael Fishman, project manager at the Office of Storm Recovery, “and developing that as part of the curriculum, part of this understanding of where they are in their watershed …”

Rebuild by Design also announced the finalists in its Social Resiliency Program, which are competing for $2 million in funding for proposed projects focusing on education, research, maintenance, long-term monitoring and jobs. “It’s a very exciting thing to be able to take $2 million and develop a program that’s going to be much longer-lasting than just building the construction,” said Van Orsdel.

The finalists are Hofstra University’s National Center for Urban Studies, Nassau BOCES, the New York Institute of Technology, Operation SPLASH, the Rockville Centre School District and the Tanglewood Center for Science Teaching and Learning. They must submit final proposals and budgets by Sept. 9. The monetary awards will be announced in October.

The next Citizens Advisory Committee meeting will be in November.

“I want to make sure,” Bilello said, “that while some of the goals of educating on resiliency or developing things like greenways are important and nice for our community, the focus of funds and projects are around mitigating the potential for future flooding and making sure our infrastructure can better handle the next natural disaster.”

He added that East Rockaway Mayor Bruno Romano has offered to host future Living with the Bay meetings in East Rockaway Village Hall, and will announce the dates when they are scheduled. “We hope to have many Village residents there to help progress this project to completion,” Bilello said.

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