April 2009
The potential for storm surges, along with rising sea-levels due to climate change, are a growing concern in delta cities around the world. Such a surge would cause significant damage to real estate and economic activities in and around New York. To prevent such an event from happening, Halcrow, along with three other engineering firms, was asked to provide ideas of what storm surge barriers aimed at protecting the New York and New Jersey metropolitan region from severe coastal flooding might look like.
A conference, “Against the Deluge: Storm Surge Barriers to Protect New York City”, was held at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn on March 30 and 31. It was organized by academics and engineers in New York City to discuss proposed barrier ideas and was hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers’ New York Metropolitan Section Infrastructure Group and the New York Academy of Sciences.
Halcrow’s Graeme Forsyth, Glasgow, and Dennis Padron, New York, presented an idea for a barrier stretching across the entrance of the outer harbor of New York and New Jersey. The NY-NJ Outer Harbor Gateway involves a five-mile flood defense extending between the Rockaway Peninsula and Sandy Hook, plus the reinforcement of some 10-miles of the natural defenses along these low lying peninsulas. The barrier would include two gates in the main navigation channel, with each gate having two leaves, each measuring the length of a football field. The barrier would also include smaller gates for two secondary navigation channels, and fifty sluice gates, each 80 feet across. The concept would allow for a road to run along the top of the causeway connecting the two states.
Halcrow’s concept is based on a similar project that the firm has been involved with in St. Petersburg, where the Russian government has funded a 15-mile-long barrier that is due for completion in 2010.
“This is innovation – not invention,” said Graeme. “The most interesting part of the project, for me, was designing the large radius vertical axis sector gates for the main shipping channel to accommodate almost 200 ships a day.”
“What we presented is an idea, a concept that should be explored further and studied in detail,” said Dennis. “It provides protection for a much greater portion of the region than the other concepts proposed, and at apparently lower cost.”
Other firms presenting included: Arcadis, Parsons Brickerhoff, and Camp Dresser & Mckee - who took up the challenge of developing concepts to close the Harbor by placing barriers at the entrance to the Arthur Kill at the south end of Staten Island, at the Verrazano Narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn, and at Hell Gate at the southern reach of Long Island Sound.