The Environment

Rebuilding the South Shore ‘by design’

Interboro, Freeport SPLASH reveal plans to reinforce the shoreline

Posted
Freeport SPLASH and the Interboro Rebuild by Design team hosted an event last Saturday to get the word out about plans to restore and reinforce the shoreline.
Scott Brinton/Herald Life

Three members of the Interboro Rebuild by Design team showcased plans to restore and reinforce Nassau County’s southern shorelines at an event sponsored last Saturday by Freeport SPLASH (Stop Polluting Littering and Save Harbors).

The designers –– Daniel D’Oca and Georgeen Theodore of Interboro Partners and Richard Baldwin of Apex Companies –– titled their blueprint to fortify the South Shore “Living with the Bay.” The team is one of 10 from across the Superstorm Sandy-affected region competing for a share of $4 billion in federal funds that will be allocated on April 4 through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. President Obama and HUD organized the Rebuild by Design contest in Sandy’s wake.

“There is not just one ‘silver-bullet’ solution” to holding back the Atlantic Ocean in a major storm, said D’Oca. “About $4 billion are at stake, and we hope to get as much of that money as possible.”

Interboro’s multi-dimensional plan includes:

• Sluice gates along inland canals, streams and rivers that would remain open at most times but would close during a storm with a heavy tidal surge.

•Bioswales, which are landscaped trenches along roads that are designed to hold water.

•Upstream reinfiltration systems, which would pump triple-treated sewage water from the Bay Park treatment plant in East Rockaway back upstream so it can deposited in inland waterways, instead of the bays, to help recharge Nassau’s sole-source aquifer.

•Aquaphilic urban planning, for which apartment buildings and other structures would be designed to remain usable after a flood.

•Water “detention” centers under municipal properties such as parks, where water would be sent into underground storage cisterns in a flood. Theodore said that such cisterns could be built in places like Bligh Field in Rockville Centre.

Page 1 / 3