| High Tide 2:33am | Low Tide 8:56am | High Tide 2:58pm | Low Tide 9:45pm* |
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 Nov. 14
General Assembly
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It's Time for a
Crucial Discussion
on Waterfront Cities Facing Sea Level Rise
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Don't miss this important meeting
of waterfront people
from all over the region
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The waterfront communities of the metropolitan region couldn't have had a more pointed reminder than Hurricane Sandy: Forward-thinking public policy to protect our waterfront is critical to our future health and prosperity.
Rockaway house, by Sean McGowan
Please join us at MWA's 2012 General Assembly on November 14 at the South Street Seaport Museum in Lower Manhattan. Weeks ago, the General Assembly was scheduled to take place on November 14th, and today, days after unprecedented -- but foreseen -- damage from storm surge, the need to address our shoreline infrastructure is imperative.
South Street Seaport by Robert Simko
We will discuss waterfront priorities for the coming election year and the next five years. The event will be organized to gather input from you on all of the important waterfront issues affecting New York City, with a special emphasis on the ways we must adapt to sea level rise and the many challenges this presents.
City Island boats, by Betsy Haggerty
The results of our work at the General Assembly will help develop a progressive waterfront policy that MWA will use to influence the platforms for those who seek elected office and to inform and finalize MWA's new strategic plan.
Sandbags at Bowling Green subway station, by Robert Simko
MWA's 2012 General Assembly will be held on November 14th at 6pm at the South Street Seaport Museum, 12 Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, pending restoration of electricity in the Seaport area. We will confirm the location of the meeting in several days.
There is limited space so don't forget to RSVP here. A reception and networking will take place from 6pm to 6:30pm, and then we will have our discussion from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.
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Events on the Waterfront
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November 17
Degraw Street
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For a map of vessels navigating the NY/NJ waterways at this moment, check marinetraffic.com.
Tide times above are for the waters under the Bayonne Bridge on October 22, 2012.
For your waterfront's daily tides,
go to saltwatertides.com.
For information about environmental conditions (currents, water temperature, salinity, wave height, etc.) of the New York Harbor area, check the Urban Ocean Observatory at Stevens Institute's Center for Maritime Systems
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| CONTENTS: November 5, 2012 | Click on the links below to read the stories in this edition of WaterWire.
Roland Lewis: Rebuilding Wisely
Think Venice, not New Orleans
Did you know these organizations were part of MWA?
Newslinks
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REBUILDING WISELY thoughts from Roland Lewis
| | Pumping Out and Picking Up in a Changed World
We hope this edition of WaterWire finds you and your loved ones safe. Many of our Alliance Partners were affected by the storm, and help is needed at waterfront sites around New York and New Jersey. Please check websites, Facebook and Twitter feeds for information about how you can volunteer and what kind of donations are needed.
Two hurricanes in two years. What we build and where we build at our shoreline are no longer academic questions.
We need to adapt our shorefront plans -- and this could mean hard choices about where people live and how to protect the infrastructure that serves our metropolis. There will be calls for floodgates and other great barriers to defend our region, but we should also seriously think about a shoreline design that allows water to flow out as easily as it flows in, without damage to streets and buildings. We must work out a new relationship with the water, not fight it; think Venice, where the water is embraced and famously made part of the city, not New Orleans, hiding behind larger and bigger levees. Working with Mother Nature in this way could be more cost effective and less environmentally damaging, less likely to cut off the city from the rebirth of its waterfront.
Most of all we need political leaders to make the response to sea level rise their highest priority. Mayor Bloomberg's nationally recognized Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability has a questionable future at the conclusion of the Mayor's last term. We must keep this office functioning at the highest levels and complement it with well-staffed regional, state and national level equivalents, all of them -- us! -- working in concert to develop coordinated plans for a safe, clean, thriving, wisely rebuilt waterfront.
- Roland Lewis
President and CEO, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance
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GOVERNOR CUOMO: "WE HAVE A NEW REALITY" but...
| | ..."We Have an Old Infrastructure."
Monday, October 29. Hurricane Sandy approaches the metropolitan area. Cruise ships and other commercial vessels are diverted to other ports. As Zone A residents around the city decamp for higher ground, the vessels remaining in New York Harbor head up the Hudson River to safer waters and those left at area marinas secure their lines. At high tide around 9am, furious waves lick at sea walls, hinting at what's to come 12 hours later when the storm is full force at the next high tide.
Waves surge over the North Cove breakwater in Battery Park City on Oct. 29.
Photo: Alison Simko
By 9pm, the waters have risen 10 to 15 feet above sea level in some places, and 30-foot waves are said to be off the Rockaways. Boats are tossed inland and cars are yanked into raging waters. Bridges are closed; tunnels flooded. The FDR Drive shuts down, as does West Street. Constant lightning flashes fill the sky -- but it's not lightning: it's transformers exploding throughout New York and New Jersey.
Water surges inland from the Harbor, turning West Street into a river.
Photo: Alison Simko
Tuesday, October 30.
Waterfront folks check on each other and assess damage. The death toll rises. Swaths of homes and businesses have been devastated in the Rockaways, Red Hook, Gerritsen Beach, Staten Island's Tottenville, Hoboken, the Jersey shore and many other places in the metropolitan region. The polluted Gowanus Canal floods, and when State Senator Daniel Squadron sees people near the Superfund waterway, he cries, "Go inside!"
Kate Zidar, executive director of the Newtown Creek Alliance, tells City & State, the online political publication, " "If you take a look at [the flood zone] map and you see that your home is positioned near the industrial zones, and you see standing water in the street, you should assume that water is not clean."
The Paris Cafe on Peck Slip.
Photo: Robert Simko
Ground-floor businesses and homes in Lower Manhattan's South Street Seaport neighborhood, where water rose to the tops of street-level doorways, are said to be a total loss. By the end of the day, as Sandy sputters, hoses have been hooked up and the long process of pumping out the flooded basements has begun.
Pumping out a flooded basement on Warren Street.
Photo: Robert Simko
Governor Cuomo offers the city a televised update. "We're going to build it back smarter," he says, after listing unprecedented damage throughout the city. "We're going to have to educate ourselves. We have to make sure if there is another situation like this, we're more prepared and more protected."
"We have a new reality. We have an old infrastructure. That is not a good combination."
Wednesday, October 31. A region-wide conversation about dealing with storm surges and sea level rise begins to take shape. Hundreds of people comment on a New York Times story headlined For Years, Warning That It Could Happen Here. Even more comment on a Times editorial, Worrying Beyond Hurricane Sandy, which reminded readers that Klaus Jacob, a Columbia University scientist, warned of massive infrastructure damage from sea level rise. Governor Cuomo likes the idea of storm surge barriers, like those used in Europe.
Referring to untreated sewage in the waterways, the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene advises that direct contact with the Hudson River, East River, New York Harbor, Jamaica Bay and the Kill Van Kull for recreational activities such as swimming, canoeing, kayaking, windsurfing, or any other water activity that would entail possible direct contact with the water should be avoided until further notice.
Water being pumped from flooded buildings and tunnels is filthy, garbage-laden, with an oily sheen.
Thursday, November 1. Concerned about fuel deliveries to the city after U.S. Coast Guard closes the Port to commercial shipping, Senator Charles Schumer speaks with CG leadership. The busiest oil port in the world, New York Harbor receives an average of 900,000 barrels of petroleum products every day, according to the Energy Department. In response to Sen. Schumer's inquiry, the Coast Guard opens two anchorages for ships to unload fuel to barges, which, with tugs, begin to make their way north, south and east.
The Staten Island Ferry resumes its crossings.
NBC news publishes Experts: NYC sea barrier could have stopped surge.
November 2. The conversation widens about how to protect the region from future storm surges. Online at the Times, readers debate what technology is best.
Marina operators, boat clubs and the South Street Seaport Museum send out calls for clean-up help and donations. Riverkeeper publishes information about the storm's devastating impact on the Hudson River and asks people to document pollution. "The amount of pollution released by this storm is staggering," says Capt. John Lipscomb. Riverkeeper also publishes important clean-up tips.
The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance reassures the waterfront community that the 2012 MWA General Assembly will go forward as planned on Thursday, November 14. See story at left.
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| MWA PARTNER SPOTLIGHT | |
Expanding every week, the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance is more than a coalition; it's a force. We are ferry captains, shipping executives, park directors, scientists, sailors, paddlers, swimmers, teachers, urban planners, architects and more. Together, we advocate for the best possible waterfront in the best possible city, a waterfront that is clean and accessible to all, with a robust maritime workforce and efficient, affordable waterborne transportation. Join us! Contact Louis Kleinman at lkleinman@waterfrontalliance.org. Meet some Partners of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance:
Paddlers Cove - Retail store for kayaks and accessories.
Parsons Brinckerhoff - Founded in 1885 and headquartered in New York City, Parsons Brinckerhoff is a leader in the development and operation of infrastructure to meet the needs of communities in the New York area and around the world.
Passaic River Institute - The Passaic River Institute (PRI) conducts environmental research and runs educational programs to help find solutions for environmental problems, focusing on the Passaic River, its tributaries and surrounding watershed lands.
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey conceives, builds, operates and maintains infrastructure critical to the New York/New Jersey region's trade and transportation network.
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| WATERFRONT NEWSLINKS |
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New York Can Be a Vibrant Venice as Sea Level Now Rises, Say Engineers"New York City could become a vibrant Venice even as sea level rise accelerates, say architects and engineers. And it could do so, they add, without the problems of Venice, which is built on soft, subsiding soil. The towers of Manhattan stand directly on solid bedrock..."ABC News, November 4, 2012 Port resumes operations in Sandy's wake"The East Coast's busiest port got back to business today after being swamped Hurricane Sandy's surge. Longshoremen began unloading a variety of cargo this morning at the Maher and APM container terminals along Newark Bay in Elizabeth, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said. Several ships were expected at the two terminals today, said the Port Authority..."The Star Ledger, November 4, 2012 After Hurricane Sandy, Coney Island's Future Hangs In The Balance"The night the sea swept over Surf Avenue, Dick Zigun, the modern day P.T. Barnum who helped breathe life back into this strange and iconic corner of New York, was at home on West 15th Street, three blocks from the historical freak show that he resurrected and two blocks from the beach. Like many of his neighbors, Zigun had decided not to obey the city's orders to evacuate..."Huffington Post, November 3, 2012 Will Jersey shore ever be the same after Sandy?"It is one of the icons of America, the backdrop to a thousand stories - the place where Tony Soprano's nightmares unfolded, where Nucky Thompson built his "Boardwalk Empire", where Snooki and The Situation brought reality TV to the ocean's edge and where Springsteen conjured a world of love and loss and cars and carnival lights and a girl named, incongruously, Sandy..."NY Daily News, November 3, 2012 Hurricane Sandy has subsided, but some New Yorkers still screaming for help"The frustrated voices come now like the tailwinds of Hurricane Sandy..."NY Daily News, November 3, 2012 Port Authority: NJ's Port Elizabeth reopens Sunday"A northern New Jersey marine terminal shuttered by superstorm Sandy is about to reopen for business. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says five cargo vessels will arrive Sunday morning at the Port Elizabeth Terminal. Four of the vessels will go to the Maher Terminal, while the other is headed to the APM Terminal..."Long Island Newsday, November 3, 2012 Clean-Up Efforts Continue at Motiva's Sewaren Terminal Spill Site in N.J."Shell Oil Co., a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell PLC Thursday said efforts continue to recover an estimated 6,600 barrels of diesel fuel that spilled into the Woodbridge Creek when a tank ruptured Wednesday at its shuttered joint-venture Motiva terminal in Sewaren, N.J...."Fox Business, November 1, 2012 3-D Maps Pictured Sandy's Devastation-Five Years AgoFive years ago, a report called "Nation Under Siege" illustrated the vulnerability of 31 U.S. coastal cities to flooding. But not just to any kind of flooding-to the flooding of a permanent kind from sea level rise. What will happen to these cities, the report asked, as sea levels continue to increase from global warming? The study provided answers in a series of 3-D maps constructed using data from federal science agencies and the United Nations' climate panel. The maps provide an uncanny prediction of what transpired Monday night when superstorm Sandy engulfed 1,000 miles of Atlantic coastline..." Inside Climate News, November 1, 2012 Sewage still overflowing in downstate NY flooding"New York officials monitoring sewage treatment plants hit by superstorm Sandy say three are still reporting overflows of untreated or partially treated sewage, while nine reported overflows since Monday..."Wall Street Journal, October 31, 2012 River Cafe, Flooded By Storm Surge, One Of Many NYC Restaurants Hit Hard By Hurricane Sandy"Most nights, the River Cafe's location on the East River, just beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, is its greatest asset. The old Fulton Ferry Landing affords it a deeply romantic view of the lower Manhattan skyline, which has made it one of the city's premier destinations for engagements, anniversary dinners and high power business meetings. But on Monday, as Hurricane Sandy swept storm surges of more than 10 feet into New York Harbor, that same location turned into a nightmare for owner Michael "Buzzy" O'Keefe..."Huffington Post, October 30, 2012
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