Weighing storm surge protection v. waterfront access

publicity stunt...but at least its pro=active, useful publicity

Two Billion dollars would buy a whole lot of Ice Nine.

The concept of a city-by-city approach shows how imbecile this plan is. It needs to be a regional approach with real money and real engineering and not hermetically sealing one city from the next. It will never happen. We are not the city-states of ancient Greece.

This needs to be done on the state or national level and somehow, we have to move past this constant fixation of associating progress with taxes. If this thinking continues, we will be paying no taxes for no infrastructure improvements just like the deep South. You pay nothing and you get nothing.

Add each municipality to the mix and you can see how ridiculous this plan will be when some cities put up money and others don't. It needs to be done regionally.

The future of the JC water front

$2 billion anti-storm sea wall would alter Jersey City coastline

By Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal
on November 03, 2014 at 7:31 AM

Jersey City is planning to embark on a $2 billion coastal defense plan along its eastern waterfront, one that would that radically alter the city?s so-called Gold Coast and, city officials hope, protect it from the kind of massive flooding it experienced during Hurricane Sandy.

The plan, in its initial stages, is to construct a nearly two-mile long sea wall that would create a ?seal? from the city?s border with Hoboken all the way south to Liberty State Park, according to an architectural firm that discussed the plan with the city Municipal Utilities Authority on Thursday.

The city?s existing waterfront retaining walls are 10 feet above sea level. The proposed sea wall, or berm, would extend an additional eight feet.

The storm surge that led to flooding during Hurricane Sandy topped out at 14 feet. The 2012 superstorm left large swaths of Downtown and Country Village underwater, and resulted in tens of millions of dollars of damage to public and private property.

The sea wall would take as little as five years to complete and as long as 15, architect Dean Marchetto said. Similar projects are in the works to protect Hoboken and New York City.

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I'd say that plus the storm runoff. Since Sandy, the City has worked to replace a lot of West-East running sewers with bigger pipes - at least on the numbered streets (kudos to the City for that improvement). The next question will be - do the Hudson river pumps have the capacity to handle the runoff volume at high tide? Otherwise a lot of areas in DTJC will simply fill up like a bathtub again, irrespective of coastal walls.

Billion dollar casino proposal, multi-billion dollar seawall/development along the water-are we seeing a pattern where Fulop is more interested in high profile projects rather than improving local community areas with better policing, trash removal, and 'broken window' monitoring? Maybe a re-direct towards 'low hanging fruit' projects with quick returns/improvements would be better?

Much of the water that came in and flooded the heart of DTJC (near city hall) came not from the Hudson River-side (east) but from the south, through the marina.

How does one fill in land, build a wall, and still have a marina?

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Dean Marchetto was the architect for Gulls Cove, not the developer. Dean Geibel is the principal of Metro Homes, which is the developer for Gulls Cove.

Why don't we just spend the estimated $2 billion plus the trillions of overruns and insurance losses to just promote development and related infrastructure on higher ground?

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This is happening now as we speak?!!! Tomorrow morning, if the weather cooperates, I think I'll go downtown and go to the shoreline to watch it happening. I'm excited. However, I have a feeling you might be confusing the lava situation in Hawaii with what 's "happening now" in NY/NJ?

I wouldn't put too much faith in this being built. I a few years Sandy will be a distant memory for many. Who knows when we will see another perfect storm like that one (major NE taking a left turn during one of the highest tides during the year).

The bigger worry IMHO is the fact that Jersey City's sewer system is not compliant with current environmental law. Our combined sewer system still dumps untreated sewage during heavy rains. The fix (underground storage) is not cheap. Cities that have done that such as Atlanta have had massive increases in water bills due to cost overruns.

Dean Marchetto hasn't been able to finish Phase 2 of Gulls Cove despite many years of empty promises. This proposed idea is simply more hot air from him. With all of the regulatory approvals from the feds, the states, and lawsuits from currently waterfront property owners, this proposed project won't see light of day for about a decade and a half. Most of us will have cashed out and left JC by then.

I wouldn't fret about this too much. Your grandchildren may live to see this seawall, but that's doubtful.

Consider that just a few centuries ago our shoreline went right up to the Palisades. Over time we filled the downtown in and out to the present shoreline. Manhattan has been moving westward at the same time and as a result of more superstorms Jersey City and Manhattan will meet and eliminate the need for PATH and the ferries. Happening now as we speak.

It might take only 5 years to build, but filling in any land along the Hudson River will need to pass a huge amount of state and federal paperwork, that is no doubt decades away from construction, not to mention the current waterfront property owners aren't going to be too keen on turning that new land into developable property, which of course will lead to lawsuits.

Expect the administration to bring the Wall Street guys in, to finance this and reap huge profits from the sale of land created by filling in the hudson. For all of those along the waterfront, like Avolon Cove who thought they had waterfront property, you are now sitting with towers in front of you as they fill in the river. Big bucks to be made by Wall street and the developers, all in the name of climate change. Funny, Hoboken again, had the right approach and didn't look to sell out to the big money interest.

Jersey City eyes $2 billion coastal defense plan to prevent catastrophic flooding

By Terrence T. McDonald
The Jersey Journal

Jersey City is planning to embark on a $2 billion coastal defense plan along its eastern Waterfront, one that would that radically alter the city's so-called Gold Coast and, city officials hope, protect it from the kind of massive flooding it experienced during Hurricane Sandy.

The plan, in its initial stages, is to construct a nearly two-mile long sea wall that would create a "seal" from the city's border with Hoboken all the way south to Liberty State Park, according to an architectural firm that discussed the plan with the city Municipal Utilities Authority last night.

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