Make Your Voice Heard: Army Corps’ Flood Gate NY-NJ Project

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is proposing a $52 billion, 14-year construction plan to build 12 flood gates across our waterways as part of the NY & NJ Harbor & Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study (HATS). The intent of the coastal barriers proposed in East Harlem, Lower Manhattan, southern Brooklyn, and the entire Rockaway Peninsula is to protect low lying New York City and surrounding areas from damage caused by future storm surges and flooding. 

The Army Corps is soliciting public feedback on their report through March 7, 2023, in order to refine their proposal. 

NY/NJ Baykeeper has always supported natural infrastructure which is far cheaper, easier to maintain, and better for the environment than the barriers and hard infrastructure proposed in this feasibility study.

Our concerns:

• There is not enough information about what happens to the communities outside proposed tide gates including the Raritan Bayshore and Staten Island.
• We don’t want to repeat the same costly mistakes that New Orleans made. Less than a year after a system of levees and sea walls were completed in Orleans in response to Hurricane Katrina, experts indicated it wasn’t enough due to rising sea levels. Since this project is funded by taxpayers, let’s make sure we do it right. 
• Closing the gates during major storms would trap rainwater runoff, raw sewage, and other pollutants behind these barriers, causing flooding and pollution inland, in already overburdened communities and parks. The communities in and out of the flood gates matter significantly when thinking about equitable impacts to local, residential communities. 
• The proposal would restrict flow on the Hackensack River which is already reduced by upstream withdrawals, which would negatively impact fish, wildlife, and water quality.
• Walls typically aren’t an effective solution and don’t protect against inland flooding.

What we need: A better, more comprehensive plan.

• Nature based solutions should be prioritized and deployed first before grey infrastructure is implemented.
• We need to make sure any plan reduces water pollution. We’re concerned that flood gates will cause pollution hot spots as water is trapped behind the gates.
• Any plan should be led by the communities it will benefit and impact.