New York will raise one of its parks to protect the community from climate change

By Angela Moore

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Superstorm Sandy flooded Lower Manhattan in 2012 with nearly 1,500 milliliters of rain and storm surge, engulfing New York City’s subway lines and destroying homes and businesses.

The storm and the ravages in its wake were a wake-up call that New York is not immune to more intense cyclones and rising sea levels caused by climate change.

To protect Lower Manhattan, the city developed a $ 1.45 billion project to install 3.9 kilometers of flood barriers, gates and other fences along the East River.

The project also includes a renovation of the East River Park to cover it with enough land to withstand flooding, effectively raising the forested area by 2.4 to 3 meters. The city will plant 2,000 trees to improve the quality of water and air, while the work includes the felling of 1,000 trees.

Some residents have protested the plan, saying it causes too much damage and costs too high relative to the protection it would provide.

The East Side Coastal Recovery Project should be ready by 2025 and is part of a $ 20 billion plan to protect all of Lower Manhattan from rising water levels.

“This is a project that will protect 110,000 people on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, of whom 28,000 live in subsidized housing. This is a community that was truly devastated by Hurricane Sandy,” said Jainey Bavishi, director of the new New York City Municipality Office of Recovery.

Bavishi estimates that the East River will rise by up to 60 centimeters by 2050.

“This project is unprecedented in many ways because nothing like this has ever been built in a dense urban environment like New York City,” Bavishi added. “We have a dense infrastructure both on the surface and underground, and we are trying to incorporate flood protection,” he explained.

With more than 830 kilometers of coastline in New York City, protecting from storm surges caused by cyclones is a monumental task.

“People often point to the Netherlands. The Netherlands only has a third of the coastline in the entire country compared to the coastline of New York City … We are doing this in a very restricted geography,” he said. Bavishi.

Construction workers have begun installing an underground foundation sheet barrier, the first step toward building the flood wall.

The works will be carried out in two phases to allow the community to have continuous access to the East River Park.

(Reporting by Angela Moore. Edited in Spanish by Marion Giraldo)

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