Quote:
Originally Posted by Eidolon
Political support for a sea wall in New York Harbor begins to form
Robert S. Eshelman, E&E reporter
ClimateWire: Thursday, November 15, 2012
NIMBYism will stoop to new lows of stupidity and lack of foresight if they try to block or delay something this important for the city, especially if their only concerns are their views from beachfront housing that will be destroyed by the next storm surge.
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Please. Their concern is their house value. How would you like it if you owned a property there and your investment's value could be reduced by 1/3 or more by such measures?
Even if the threat of destruction by storm surge reduces the value of the house, cutting the view would probably be far worse. Who wants to buy a coastal house with no sea view but instead a view of a ugly barrier or a dune? I understand their fears and I think that this will be a big fight.
I don't think they should ruin the beaches with massive tall dunes. Beaches are one of NY trumps cards and I think the medicine is worse than the disease. I feel like the best thing would be to build a storm surge gate across the Raritan Bay to protect the most vulnerable areas of the core population. For the beaches, instead of tall dunes or ugly sea walls that would block the view, how about building breakwaters farther out to sea that will not impinge so much on views?
If somebody (i.e, leadership) actually had some balls, here is a novel idea. Given that the airports in NYC are so constrained and congested and will need to be expanded in the future to prevent sure regional economic stagnation or decline, why not build a new island airport/flood barrier hybrid near the mouth of the Raritan bay with movable gates for passing ships. Such an island airport would be built higher than any projected sea level rises and be surrounded by breakwaters or sea-walls, etc. Kill two birds with one stone by closing JFK airport, replacing it with a larger airport with more runways while reducing the threat of flooding to the core population areas. By doing so you also reduce noise and pollution effects for much of the area due to more over-water landings/takeoffs.
Sadly, that would be something that Asia or even Europe would have the balls to do but NYC and Washington pols have neither the will, imagination, innovation, nor foresight to bring something like this to fruition.
The US is on the downward slope, the age of the big innovative engineering projects seems to be over, which is a sign of decline and apathy.