Allocating Funds to Pay for FiDi-Seaport Resilience Design
U.S. Congressman Dan Goldman is seeking to allocate $8.2 million in federal funds to advance design work on two components of the FiDi-Seaport Climate Resilience Plan, which aims to mitigate flooding from rising sea levels and extreme-weather events between the Battery and the Brooklyn Bridge.
This project, which contemplates building a network of decks, berms, flood walls, and breakwaters that will extend into the East River between 90 and 210 feet, is slated to cost between $8 and $10 billion and take a decade to build, although no start date for construction has been announced and almost no funds have been committed.
Mr. Goldman is requesting $4.65 million to continue design work on a pump station to be located near a rebuilt Downtown Skyport (the helicopter facility based at Pier 6 on the East River, south of the ferry hub at Pier 11). This infrastructure is necessary to solve a problem that will be created by the construction of water barriers that will keep storm surges and rising seas out of Lower Manhattan: The same structures will act as a dam, retaining water unless there is a mechanism to expel it. The pump station is expected to cost $275 million, along with approximately $700 million for new sewer pipes to convey effluent into it.
The Congressman is also seeking $3.5 million to refine preliminary designs for “flood walls, gates, and passive elevation flood protection, as well as upgrades to the surrounding marine structures between the Battery and the Battery Maritime Building.” This section of the FiDi-Seaport Climate Resilience Plan focuses on the current location of the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, which will be expanded into a larger structure housing both the Staten Island and Governors Island ferries, around a grand atrium called the Civic Gateway. The enlarged terminal is planned to expand into the site of the existing U.S. Coast Guard building in the Battery, which will be demolished. Once the new ferry landing is completed, the existing Battery Maritime Building (a legally protected landmark) would be enclosed by flood walls and cease to function as a boat landing. Construction of the new ferry terminal is projected to cost $1.6 billion.
The combined total of approximately $8.2 million that Mr. Goldman is asking for in these budget requests represents roughly three-tenths of one percent of the overall cost of the FiDi-Seaport Climate Resilience Plan.
Mr. Goldman is seeking to allocate this money under a program known as Congressional Community Project Funding, which allows members of the House of Representatives to direct federal funding toward as many as 20 state, local, or non-profit initiatives within their districts each year. This is the successor to a controversial, former budget mechanism once known as “earmarks.” The reformed version includes greater disclosure and transparency requirements than its predecessor.