Weighing Sea Barriers As Protection For New York

With the click of a computer mouse, : machinery on the seafloor groaned into action

and a gate was slowly pulled from the deep, locking into place high above the surge from Long Island Sound.

Two days later, when storm waters from Hurricane Sandy ripped through the East Coast, much of Stamford, a city of 124,000, sat securely behind a 17-foot-high barrier that easily blocked an 11-foot surge.

The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the two-mile-long barrier system, completed in 1969, helped prevent about $25 million in damage to businesses and homes. The protected area encompasses about 600 acres, including downtown Stamford.

Stamfords mayor, Michael A. Pavia, said: It was extremely effective in protecting areas that would have been flooded completely by this storm. It made all the difference in the world.

The technology of movable sea barriers, : from Stamfords modest flap gate to Londons mighty 10-gate system in the River Thames, has long intrigued engineers and planners contemplating a solution for low-lying areas of New York City. The notion is that such a system could one day block surges from Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean into the East River and New York Harbor.

Now, in the aftermath of the devastating storm, one question is front and center: Should New York armor itself with steel and concrete at a cost of billions of dollars?

Experts whose barrier designs and studies from a conference in 2009 were issued on Monday in book form argue that anything short of sea gates would be a Band-Aid approach.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has expressed wariness about the barrier proposal, saying he is not sure the gates would work well enough. Yet, it is clear that his administrations view is evolving.

Jeroen Aerts, a researcher with the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands who was hired by New York in 2009 to assess flood risks and protections, said officials initially preferred to focus on cheaper and less-intrusive options like flood-proofing buildings and expanding wetlands to absorb more water.

The assumption, he said, was that unlike New Orleans, New York City is far enough above sea level and skilled enough at evacuations that it could prevent a major loss of lives.

by: heer rajani

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