City OKs redesign of $20M bulkhead project

Plans call for protecting critical infrastructure along Reynolds Channel

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The City Council recently approved the redesign of a $20.6 million plan to protect the city’s critical infrastructure and the North Park community along Reynolds Channel, which were seriously damaged by Hurricane Sandy, and work on the project is expected to begin next year.

In 2014, the council voted unanimously to approve an $822,000 contract with Woodbury-based D&B Engineers and Architects P.C. to create designs for the installation of bulkheads and other flood protection infrastructure along the city’s northern waterfront — from National to Monroe boulevards, an area that is prone to flooding.

The project is financed entirely by state and federal funds, and was first announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2013. Its initial cost was $13 million, and city officials said they were able to secure additional hazard-mitigation funds administered by the state to expand the work.

During Sandy, the industrial district — the city’s water treatment plant and storage tower, wastewater treatment plant, electrical substations and a major gas pipeline — was underwater, and had to be shut down for weeks for emergency repairs. The wastewater plant was out of operation for 10 days, officials said, the city had no electrical power for two weeks, and the water treatment plant was inoperable for nearly three weeks, with periodic outages after that while it was repaired. Parts of the waterfront, officials said, had either no bulkheads or inadequate ones.

“It’s a big piece of the puzzle of protecting our city from future storms and providing some protection to our critical infrastructure in the center of the city as well as the North Park neighborhood,” City Manager Jack Schnirman said.

The initial designs for 2,300 feet of bulkheading and a “Dutch dam” system to protect the city’s industrial district were completed in June 2015. But on Nov. 1, the council voted to amend the city’s contract with D&B for an additional $558,000 in order to redesign the project after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies advised the city to expand its plan.

The agencies called on the city to reroute roughly 1,800 feet of bulkheading and incorporate bulkheads along a portion of Long Island Rail Road property — a project that was initially to be undertaken by the LIRR — which the city said “is a critical component in maintaining a continual line of protection along the shoreline.” The revision will also include a pumping system to send water back into the channel over the bulkheads.

“What was lacking was a design component to incorporate the railroad tracks, which has now been incorporated into the design,” said John Mirando, commissioner of the Department of Public Works, adding that the project is 18 months behind schedule. “All of the stakeholders … reached a general consensus.”

In September, the city was granted a 24-month extension to revise the plan. Former DPW Commissioner Jim LaCarrubba, who now works for the city on a part-time basis to help oversee such post-storm resiliency efforts, said that construction is now on track to begin late next year following a permitting process.

The city is required to submit a final design in June, though LaCarrubba said that the redesign is expected to be completed this winter.

“Through all of our talks with the Army Corps and DEC, we thought we came up with a design that would meet all their concerns and our concerns to make the city more resilient and to protect that infrastructure along the bayfront,” he said. “And we wanted to make sure we had an agreement in place with the railroad. We’re also looking to put an improvement to the storm-water system over there than won’t only mitigate flooding, but would address issues in the North Park community related to flooding.”

The project is separate from a $12.8 million state-funded plan to replace and elevate bulkheads along the entire north shore, including residential areas such as the Canals, which often flood during rainstorms. That project was among the highest priorities identified by the city’s Community Reconstruction Program committee after Sandy, taking up about half of the $25 million in federal money granted through the initiative, which is funded by the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program.

Forty percent of that project’s design is complete, and construction could begin next year. City officials said they are working with regulatory agencies to obtain environmental permits, and that public meetings focusing on the plan — at which residents will be able to meet with design consultants — will be scheduled in the coming months.

Residents and officials agree that both projects could not begin soon enough. “When we lost our ability to use our bathrooms and we had no water flowing,” City Council President Len Torres said, “that was it for us, and it’s truly a priority to protect our city.”